


So The World is About to End

by Chazzam, lurkdusoleil



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-23
Updated: 2014-03-23
Packaged: 2018-01-16 16:36:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 31,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1354240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chazzam/pseuds/Chazzam, https://archiveofourown.org/users/lurkdusoleil/pseuds/lurkdusoleil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blaine Anderson is a priest of an ancient order, the final priest of his line, and one destined to ultimately fail humanity. Because a force of unwavering darkness is slowly consuming the earth, and the only one who could save humankind - a Supreme Being embodying the fifth element of the natural world - has perished in a fiery spaceship crash.</p><p>Or so Blaine believes. Until that very Being is delivered directly to his doorstep, very much alive, problematically gorgeous, and determined to save a world he barely understands. If Blaine can manage to stop the world from destroying him first.</p><p>(AKA a Fifth Element Klaine AU with a sexy orange-haired Kurt.  It is not necessary to have seen the movie to enjoy the fic).</p><p>Warnings: Violence; death (no main characters); brief/light non-con (a kiss, intention for more); very brief mentions (via research) of several evils of mankind (including genocide, child abuse, war, etc); non consensual voyeurism; brief, mild instances of sexual harassment</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> We have a lot of thanks to hand out. First, to our wonderful artists, riverance and zelenoye, for their truly stunning work and choosing to show Kurt so we could see the orange hair. Second, to our betas, fmhartz91 and braindetritus, who both stepped in in varying degrees of late and taking on such a big jumbled confusing project with such enthusiasm. Third, the mods of the Kurt Hummel Big Bang for being patient with us when we were really, really dumb procrastinators. And finally, everyone who cheered us on and expressed excitement and listened to us whining and kicked our butts, even when that included each other.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cover art by the lovely and talented Zelenoye!

 

__

 

 

_"In the beginning, there was Light._

_In the beginning, there was Darkness._

_The two existed in harmony. But the Darkness grew hungry, and devoured the Light._

_A race of Guardians built a weapon against the Darkness. A Supreme Being who could combine the Elements._

_Earth. Air. Fire. Water. And the Supreme Being, the Fifth Element, who--"_

**-excerpt from "The Guardians of Light," translated from ancient pictographs in the Temple of Light, Cairo, Egypt, by members of The Priesthood. The rest of the inscription is reported to be faded beyond recognition.**

_\---_

_"Five eras of Light. The Darkness abated, hidden in the corners of the Universe. It gains strength until it is beyond its former power, biding its time. It will come again, bringing an end to Enlightenment. The Guardians, who call themselves Daltonians [concept sketch, figure 3.7] hold a weapon in the form of four Stones, one for each element. But there is a fifth element, a statue of the perfect being, a man made only to save mankind. Its most precious possession, hidden away by these Daltonians until it is time for the temple to reopen. A secret priesthood holds the key, and the knowledge to aid this Being in activating the weapon. Together, they can destroy the darkness once and for all. That is their design. That is why both were made. That is the secret that would kill to be kept._

_I was granted a vision when the Daltonians rose above the pyramids. It will come in a time when man lives among the sky, towers taller than mountains surrounding streets of fog and ash through which they fly. The sun provides a light dimmer than what mankind has erected, and all manner of alien technology is available to even the poorest of Earth’s denizens. It is a world I will not live to see--nor do I wish to be able to. It is a frightening future."_

**-excerpt from "The Truth of the Temple" by Bryan Ryan (1932 CE), an assistant to the archaeologist who discovered the purported Temple, whose existence has never been confirmed. His manuscript (the only copy of which resides with an anonymous benefactor) was never published, and he was generally considered mad.**

  
_\---_

  
_"The Darkness consumes all worlds. The end of mankind approaches. Humans cannot stand against it, try as they might. We come with salvation, a weapon against the Darkness. Allow us to pass your borders and convene with our liaison. We shall deliver."_

**-final transmission of the Daltonian flagship before it was shot down by Mangalore pirates in the Lima system. The remains of the wreckage after its sacking by the Mangalores has been scoured, and a single artifact salvaged. The president has ordered its study and it is to be revitalized if possible. Spare no cost in this endeavor. It is our only hope.**

  
_\---_

_Dear Journal,_

_Sue Sylvester is officially a genius. I have hired the biggest idiots in the universe to take down even BIGGER idiots, and they have done their job swimmingly. Now all I have to do is accept the Stones and give them their payment, and then I'll be cashing in my one way trip to TOTAL AND UTTER WORLD DOMINATION._

_I'm so proud of myself I could milk a cow with my bare breasts. I think this calls for a celebration: the firing of one million employees. There's nothing like the tears of millions to fuel my unholy RAGE._

 


	2. Chapter 1

_Blaine Anderson._

It was the first thought that pulsed through his newly reconstructed mind as he gasped his first breaths, his body spasming involuntarily as he readjusted to the long-forgotten sensation of inhabiting a human form. It was the the first impulse in the rapidly reassembling network of his brain, before his brain had any inkling of where it was or how it came to be.

_Blaine Anderson. Find Blaine Anderson._

As the bare essence of Who He Was expanded and contracted into mind, body, emotion and physicality once again, the message only became more urgent. He had been designed for this very moment, gifted to the humans once again because the Daltonians still believed that they were worth saving.

They were worth saving because he was _built_ to save them. He didn't need to understand why.

_They need you desperately. They need you now. Find Blaine Anderson._

Kurt blinked, allowing his eyes to adjust to the world around him.

The memories of the last time he had been called into physical being were hazy, but what he saw now was immensely different from what he did remember. He couldn't stop his eyes from widening and his heart from pounding. Everything was blinding white and hard clear barriers. He was encased in one of these barriers, a tube, his body wrapped in a network of thin white cloth bands, circling his chest, waist, hips, groin and thighs, and connected by longer vertical bands of the same material that converged at a collar around his neck. It was a strange garment, but reasonably comfortable, and it didn't appear to inhibit his movements, no matter how long and uncoordinated his limbs proved to be as he scrambled around the tube for some sort of escape hatch.

All around the outside of the tube were scrubbed-clean humans, some in beige and maroon outfits decorated with metal pins, and others in stark white coats. They stared at him like they could not understand what he was.

“No,” he whispered. “No, no, no, no, no...” his volume began to escalate, his adrenaline surging, breath stunted even though he _knew_ that these newly-minted lungs were fully functional, because he didn't understand what was happening, why he was being held like a prisoner or specimen or possibly both, didn't these humans _understand_ -

The humans were speaking. Kurt could hear the words, muffled through the barrier, but he could not understand the language. The sounds crowded in along the edges of his mind, and he knew that if he were to stop and truly listen, attune himself to what was being said, the language would fall into place and allow him to communicate. He knew it, but could not seem to get his knowledge to override the unfamiliar limits of his human form. The _emotions_ in these creatures, the way the chemicals that made them feel could rise up like a tidal wave and choke the breath right out of any rational thought-

“Where is Wes?” he demanded wildly in his natural tongue, recalling the last Daltonian he had been corporeal with. “Where is Wes, he can explain it all, he was supposed to bring me here, he was supposed to _be_ here-”

One of the humans drew close. It was a male, tall and thin and almost as pale-skinned as Kurt found himself to be. The man smiled at him, but there was something cool and appraising in his eyes. Something that made the expression more smirk than smile.

The human spoke slowly, in a tone that took no cultural fluency to understand. He seemed somehow _smug,_ like there was something about Kurt's predicament that pleased him. He held out a flat, rectangular object about half the size of Kurt's palm, waving it lazily in front of Kurt like it was supposed to _mean_ something. He reminded Kurt vaguely of one of the small earth creatures he had seen last time he had worn a human body. something Kurt had experienced in the darkness of the Temple of his creation.

“Rat,” Kurt muttered, as the name of the creature came back to him.

The man spoke again, rapping loudly against the clear barrier, sending unpleasant vibrations through Kurt's body. Kurt curled into a ball reflexively at the sensation.

“If I am here, then the darkness is close,” Kurt told the man in his own language, trying to keep his voice steady and hoping that perhaps _someone_ who spoke his language would be among those gathered before him. Why would they bring him back without even providing someone who could communicate? And where was Blaine Anderson?

“We do not have the luxury of time. We must assemble the stones, and I _must_ find Blaine Anderson. Please.” Kurt tried not to speak so fast, tried not to let his panic or his urgency show so plainly.

The man rapped on the barrier again as he continued to speak, sneering at Kurt openly as his eyes ran up and down Kurt's body. Something in the gaze made the fine hairs on the back of Kurt's neck stand up. Willing himself to breathe steadily, Kurt took a more careful assessment of the space around him. There were machines, different in design than those used by the Daltonians, but the purpose of some of them was plain enough. One machine seemed to be giving them information on Kurt, perhaps on his heart rate and brain activity. Another machine seemed to control the clear tube he was trapped inside. And on the outside of the tube itself were several buttons and dials, one of which _must_ open the tube itself.

The man standing in front of him seemed to have no intention of pushing any of those buttons or turning any of those dials.

The people in the white coats did not look the least bit concerned with letting Kurt out of his tube. They seemed very interested in the _other_ machines, however, and his heart sank as he realized that something had clearly gone very, very wrong, and that his fears were absolutely valid.

He was a prisoner and he was a specimen. Nothing he could think to do would change that in the eyes of the humans that surrounded him.

The human said something over his shoulder that made all the other humans laugh, and Kurt felt a rush of something fundamentally _him_ finally settling into his body. He felt every sense sharpen, his long limbs becoming the spring-loaded weapons they were built to be rather than the awkward appendages they had been just seconds before.

Kurt was here to save humanity. And this particular group of humans was in his way.

The smirking rat man turned back to face Kurt, eyes shining with the power and confidence that came with having Kurt at his mercy.

Or so he thought.

The man waved the rectangular object again, laughing, enjoying himself. Kurt tensed, moving into a crouch and meeting the man's eyes. He could not escape the low, instinctive growl that rose from his throat as he pulled his arm back and drove his fist through the thick barrier, solid as stone, as if mere _stone_ could contain all that he was.

The man's eyes widened in shock as the barrier shattered and Kurt grabbed onto the front of his coat and drew him forward sharply; the man's forehead cracking hard against the outside of the tube before he collapsed to the ground in an unconscious pile. Wasting no time, Kurt hurriedly reached his arm out to grapple with the buttons and dials outside of the tube, a loud, shrill repetitive sound--perhaps an alarm of some sort--echoing through the large white space around him as the tube slid open.

The humans were in a panic. An opening  appeared in one of the walls around them, and several humans carrying weapons ran in. The weapons were clearly serious; far more sophisticated than anything they had the last time Kurt had been on earth, and Kurt could sense their deadly capabilities from where he sat. Kurt hurriedly clambered backward, crouching behind the platform the tube sat upon, staring over it at the swarms of humans in tan and maroon outfits that continued to pour into the room, blocking the only exit he could see.

Kurt looked around, allowed himself to evaluate everything he could in order to determine the true physical nature of the room. There did only seem to be one way out, and Kurt did not want to kill any humans in order to leave, but...

Kurt closed his eyes for the briefest second. There was a quality to the sound in the room that had interested him from the very beginning, and had grown even more interesting outside of the tube. It told him everything he needed to know about how to escape the space he was in.

Kurt opened his eyes and leapt, propelling himself over the platform in front of him on his hands, completing a full somersault in the air and already running before he hit the ground. Before any of the assembled humans could so much as move a muscle, Kurt dove for the wall, bursting through the thin metal sheeting that wasn't actually a wall at all, but only provided the appearance of one.  He instantly found himself in a tunnel of sorts, and he propelled himself blindly forward, toward nothing more than the general sense of where _out_ felt like it should be.

A wall of sound rose up behind him as he ran, the sharp, bleating alarm muted by fast-approaching human voices. Kurt ran faster.

He felt his body fall into deeper alignment as he ran, felt the sheer genius of strength and balance and muscle control and instinct sing through his veins and penetrate his bones. He allowed his strides to grow longer and smoother, directing him outward, outward, outward.

When he finally found a ladder leading up and into the open air, he almost fell backward from shock as soon as the wind hit his face.

Because this world...was not the world he remembered.

The structures around him--the structure he was _in--_ were incredibly tall, tall as mountains, emerging from a thick gray blanket of dust and smoke, their pinnacles seeming to reach for the very heavens. Gods, the smell, and the _noise_ of it all--

Kurt gasped and clutched the top rung of the ladder harder as one of the vehicles whipping past veered dangerously close to him. The vehicles looked a bit like the skyships he knew from Dalton, but they were much louder and faster, and seemed to emit some of the very dust and smoke that carpeted the world around them. The world was loud and dirty and didn't seem to hold any beauty at all.

Was this earth? Was this truly the world he once knew? Could Blaine Anderson actually be _here?_

The sound of voices beneath him spurred Kurt into action; he quickly scampered up the last few rungs of the ladder and looked desperately around – others were climbing out of similar openings onto the roof he seemed to be standing on, and they were coming toward him. Before long he would be surrounded. He ran toward the edge of the building, looking for any possible means of escape--any way to follow the pull that had begun to tell him that Blaine Anderson _was_ near, that he just had to find a way to _escape_ \--

The lights of a particularly large vehicle nearly blinded Kurt as it rose up from the sky beneath, blocking his path just as he was about to reach the roof's edge.

A man was speaking to him through a device that amplified his voice, and nothing in his tone suggested that he could be anything but a threat. Humans were coming at him from all around, and Kurt had a strong feeling that none of them had any intention of bringing him to Blaine Anderson.

He closed his eyes. “Guardians of Light, guide me to my destiny,” he whispered, before running to the edge of the roof and spreading his arms wide, leaping into the deadly sky.

\---

“ _-ing crazy, what do you think you doouipernalstyfhgkjpk-”_ Kurt blinked his eyes open slowly, grasping at the tiny piece of comprehension that had sprung up in his mind upon waking. His inherent sense of time told him that it had been but a mere moment since his body had collided with the roof of a skyship and then torn straight through. He had landed heavily on a wide, padded bench in the back of the vehicle, and it smelled heavily of unwashed human and something fermented.

The man in front of him – clearly the person operating the vehicle – continued to yell, as the large skyship that had shone its lights on Kurt pulled up alongside them.

Kurt closed his eyes again, taking deep breaths and listening to the man in this vehicle communicating with the man with the amplified voice in the other vehicle. This man – he was angry, but there was something different about him. He wasn't dressed in a white lab coat or a tan and maroon outfit. And there was something in his tone when he spoke to the man with the amplified voice...

Kurt opened his eyes and looked around helplessly as it became clear that the man driving the skyship was about to give into the other man.

His eyes caught on an image, with what were unmistakably words beneath it. The image was attached to the inside wall of the vehicle beside him, and it featured a small human child, enormous eyes filled with pain, body emaciated from an obvious lack of nutrition. The child seemed to be pleading for something, for some sort of _help._

Kurt took a deep breath and stared at the words beneath the image of the child. He forced his breaths to grow steady, even in the face of the terror coursing through his veins, forced his mind to absorb the words and begin to decode them, attach them to the phonetics he had heard emerging from the humans' mouths.

“Ple-” Kurt began slowly, as the meaning and the sounds began to fall into place. The man driving the vehicle turned around to look at him.

“Ple-eeaase....pleeeaase he – pleease help,” Kurt managed. “please. Please _help.”_ The man stared at him and Kurt stared back, heart pounding as the larger vehicle drew closer, trying to put every ounce of pleading and urgency into his eyes that he could manage. “Please help me,” he whispered.

The man swallowed, muttered something that Kurt couldn't fully understand, though he did hear the phrase “big blue puppy eyes”, and then, clear and firm, “hold on tight.”

Kurt couldn't help but cry out, his body was physically thrown to the other side of the padded bench as the vehicle suddenly turned sharply and sped away. Away from the large vehicle with the bright lights and amplified voice. Away from the building where Kurt had been contained and pursued. Away from all that would keep him from his destiny.

There was a clear divider of some sort between the front of the vehicle and the back where Kurt sat, and he found himself pressed tightly up against it as the man turned the vehicle into a straight nosedive, careening toward the layer of fog and smoke beneath them.

Everything was chaos but there was nothing he could do, he had no power in this situation. Every bit of power belonged to the man controlling the vehicle. He was larger than Kurt, with caramel skin and a single strip of hair down the center of his head. His arms were bared and tense, his attention clearly focused on guiding them to safety. Kurt breathed deeply and tried to calm his body, tried to accept and yield to the fact that the fate of this world now rested on the shoulders of a man yelling curses as he swerved dangerously close to solid objects, the air around them becoming dense with a nearly opaque gray smog as they worked their way down and down and down.

Kurt closed his eyes, breathed deeply, and sought to center his mind and calm his wildly pounding heart.

Humans. So much potential. That is what the Daltonians had always said to him; so much _potential._ Unlike almost any other creature, their capacity for generosity and sacrifice was equalled by their capacity for cruelty and greed. They were still infants in a celestial sense, had already nearly destroyed themselves so many times. _We would leave them to their fate,_ Wes had told him, _if it weren’t for their potential. They could be one of Creation’s greatest miracles, if only they would allow it of themselves._

Kurt still didn’t understand it. Still didn’t understand what made the humans so special, so worth the effort despite their clearly self-destructive tendencies. What he knew was that he was here to help them. To save them. If he could only find Blaine Anderson.

Kurt was born with the name seared into his consciousness. With the knowledge that one day, Blaine Anderson would come to be, and that one day, Kurt would need to find him. There had been others; Burt Hummel was the priest he had connected with the last time, the one that had stopped humanity from succumbing to the Darkness. Kurt could only hope that he would find such a companion in Blaine Anderson, one that made him feel so safe, no matter how brief their time together may be. Because one thing was for certain: Blaine Anderson was the last human name imprinted on Kurt’s very essence. Which meant that this could very well be humanity’s last chapter in its war against the darkness that sought to consume them.

Kurt was jarred out of his thoughts as the vehicle slammed into something solid, throwing him off-balance and causing him to hit his head soundly on the window. The human swore as the lights around them abruptly cut off, leaving only a dull red glow from somewhere outside the vehicle to illuminate the space around them. Kurt took a deep breath and rubbed at his throbbing head, the thudding of his own heart nearly deafening in the sudden silence.

“--should--safe here--can--engine--backup--” Kurt managed to make out as the man somehow opened the clear wall separating the front of the vehicle from the back, and gingerly climbed through, most of his words continuing to fall through Kurt’s comprehension like water through a sieve. He was getting more words, though, and that was good. Assuming he didn’t damage himself too badly when he hit his head, Kurt imagined he would be at full comprehension before too long.

The man knelt in front of Kurt and reached out to run the back of his hand down Kurt’s cheek gently as he searched his face . Kurt jolted a bit at being touched without permission, but the man’s intentions seemed kind and his eyes were soft.

“I don’t know what you did, but you don’t look like you could hurt a fly,” the man murmured. “Are you OK?”

Despite the quiet and the fact that this man felt safe, the messages had not yet reached Kurt’s near-human body, which was still thrumming with adrenaline and injury and shock, on the brink of shutting itself down. Kurt could feel himself slipping.

“Blaine Anderson,” he said abruptly, while he still could.

“That your name?” The man asked. “Because you don’t really _look_ like a Blaine.”

“No. I... I need...need Blaine Anderson,” Kurt managed. “ _Please.”_

“Well, I gotta admit, my heteroflexible sensibilities are kinda hurt right now. Here I thought we were heading toward some epic romance of at least twelve hours, and you’re asking for another guy.” The man placed his hand to his heart and sighed, loud and dramatic and barely serious. “Name’s Puck, by the way, not Blaine Anderson. You might want to remember that in case you find yourself moaning it in a few hours.”

Kurt furrowed his brow. The man--Puck--his meaning wasn’t entirely clear, but Kurt was fairly certain that he was being extremely impudent.

“I am--” Kurt paused, unsure of the language.  “I am the _Supreme Being,_ ” he informed Puck in his own language instead, fighting against the tide of his diminishing consciousness to muster as much indignance as he could manage.

“You’re _something,_ all right,” Puck smirked, before reaching around to pinch Kurt’s bottom.

Kurt gasped, eyes going wide. How _dare--_

He didn’t have the words, so he settled for using his last burst of strength to land a solid punch to Puck’s jaw before the darkness closed in around him.


	3. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Artwork in this chapter is by the lovely and talented Riverance!

Failure. Hopelessness. That’s all Blaine could feel, after the debacle at the summit.

Blaine knew the end was coming. He knew when he took up the mantle of priesthood that his time as a contact for the Daltonians would fall during the time of the coming of the Darkness. But he’d never expected this.

Failure. The Daltonians dead, the Supreme Being missing, the government taking over his _mission_ , his reason for being.

What else was there to do now? He wasn’t a military man. Just a priest, humble all his life, staying in the background, waiting. For nothing, as it turns out. Nothing but a few pamphlets the president had handed over with a sad smile. Blaine had only bothered to read the titles.

 _So The World Is About To End_ \--

_Knock knock knock._

Blaine trudged to the door and opened it just a bit, his brow furrowing in confusion at the two men beyond--one holding the other, who appeared to be unconscious.

“Weddings?” Blaine guessed.

“I’m looking for Blaine Anderson. You him?”

The man kicked the door open and strode in, all bulging muscles and deeply tanned skin under the frighteningly orange shirt. He stomped in in heavy boots with his slick mohawk and his casual, confident smirk, and he stood right in the center of Blaine’s _sacred space_ , his place of mourning, now, and he looked at him expectantly.

 

“Yes,” Blaine answered finally. “I’m--Blaine Anderson. Who are you?”

“Noah Puckerman, call me Puck,” he said. “This guy--” he jostled the man in his arms, and Blaine winced--he’s barely clothed, dirty and disheveled, what _happened_ \-- “--fell into my cab. Like, literally into it. Right through the roof. Kept saying your name and a bunch’a other shit, couldn’t understand a word of it. But he passed out before I could get him to talk English. So you gonna pay his fare?”

“I’m sorry?” Blaine blinked and waved his hands, as though to clear the confusion from the air. “No, what was he saying?”

“Well, he asked me for help,” Puck explained. “That was plain English. But then he was babbling on and on in whatever weird-ass language that was, something like _ecto gamut_ \--”

Blaine startled.

“Say that again?”

“Ecto gamut?”

The Divine language. It--it couldn’t be--

“Never without my permission,” Blaine whispered, automatically translating the language he’d been studying most of his life. “Is there--anything else, anything about who he is--”

“No ID, no nothin’,” Puck said. “Got a tattoo, though. Right uh--on his wrist, you know?”

“A tattoo?”

Blaine reached out gently and turned the man’s wrist, dropping it and gasping at what he saw.

 _Earth. Air. Fire. Water._ This was--this was _him_ , he was alive and here and he’d found his way, he _survived_ \--The Fifth Element.

“Yep. And the permission thing makes sense,” Puck offered. “‘Cause I was just lookin’ for a little gratitude, offering my compliments, and he got all pissy and laid one on me. He’s got a helluva punch--”

Blaine noted the forming bruise on his jaw and put the pieces together with panicked speed.

“You--you _touched_ him?” Blaine blurted indignantly. “Mr. Puckerman, he is the _Supreme Being_ \--”

“--that’s what that meant, huh--”

“Look, enough. Mr. Puckerman--”

“Puck.”

“--Puck, if you would kindly--and _gently_ \--set him on my chaise--”

“Your what?”

Blaine took a deep breath.

“My _couch_ ,” he amended. “If you’d please?”

Puck shrugged and did as he said, laying Kurt down as Blaine fluttered beside him, fluffing a pillow and fidgeting, taking in--the perfect being--

“You need to leave,” Blaine urged, turning with more authority than he felt and herding Puck back. “You may submit a request for your fare, mail it to me, thank you--”

“Wait just a sec--”

“Thank you!” Blaine called, just as Puck stumbled back over the threshold, and slammed the door in his face. “Oh my gods.”

He whirled around and went back to the couch, and--there he was. Still as Blaine sat beside him, breathing softly. _Alive, alive, alive_. The Supreme Being. Tattoo on his wrist, no identification, no name. Asking for _Blaine_. And--and he was _perfect_.

Tall. Pale. Perfectly formed body revealed beneath the thermal bandages used in hospitals. Masculine, lithe, flawless. His face was--was the weeping of angels that never existed, he could _create_ angels from that face, strong jaw and cheeks and dimpled chin and wide mouth and smooth, upturned nose, and--and _gods_ what color would his almond-shaped eyes be, beneath that vibrant orange hair?

The Supreme Being--perfect. Absolutely perfect, there was no flaw, no part of him that wasn’t absolutely, heartbreakingly beautiful.

And he’d asked for Blaine.

His failure fell aside. His hope returned. All in that--soft, sharp curve of cheek, soft beneath Blaine’s fingers, and his--his _lips_ \--and Blaine _just_ brushed them, the barest hint against his own lips--

 _Pain_.

“Ceno ecto gamut,” said a voice, higher than his own, as a strong hand clenched around his throat, lifting him from the chaise as its owner stood. “Ecto gamut.”

“You--you’re right,” Blaine choked out. _Never kiss me without my permission. Never without my permission._ “I am sorry. I--I wasn’t thinking--”

“No,” the Being said, in heavily accented English, tapping his own head viciously with his free hand and sneering at Blaine. “No thinking.”

He released Blaine, and Blaine stumbled back, rubbing his throat and coughing. “Supreme Being, I was wrong to--”

“Wrong.” He blinked, folding his arms over himself, almost half-crouched, wary. He looked Blaine over. “Blaine Anderson.”

“Yes,” Blaine replied in as soothing a tone as possible. “I’m Blaine Anderson.”

The wariness melted. The Supreme Being’s eyes widened and his face broke into a breathless smile, laughter falling from his lips, his body curled down to breathe into the arms around his chest before straightening up, head back in gasping relief.

 _His eyes are every color_.

“Mala’key beleto,” he laughed, his eyes wet. _I can’t believe it._

“I--” Blaine floundered, clearing his throat again before he could even gather the presence of mind to speak. This man--this _man_ \-- “I wish I could receive you--as you deserve. There’s--a ceremony, um--”

“Tu al,” Kurt breathed, shaking his head. “Che mero yemalat.” _No time. I must learn._

“Um--of course, Supreme...um--might I--ask your name? Please?”

The Being blinked and narrowed his eyes at Blaine, as though not understanding.

“Please?”

 _Of course not. He just got here_. It was a miracle he understood as much as he did already. And he’d asked to learn for a reason, obviously. He knew nothing of this world.

“Blaine,” Blaine said, pointing to himself before pointing to the Being. Anything to foster understanding between them. “You?”

The Being blinked again, but said, “Kur’ituminaï Lekatariba Lamina-Tchaï Ekbat De Sebat.”

It was Blaine’s turn to blink. There was no way he could say all of that, even with his years of practice at the Divine Language. There were ways his mouth just _wouldn’t_ move.

“Um...is there...a shorter name?” He gestured with his hands. “Smaller. I’m Blaine.”

He held his hand out to the Being, who frowned, but nodded.

“...Kurt.”

Kurt took his hand, and Blaine couldn’t help the grin that spread over his face. How could he not be happy? He was looking into the eyes of the man he was meant to _guide_ \--the man he was meant to guide, to care for-- _oh god this is it this is my destiny and he’s beautiful--_

He was also five thousand years old, and had been in stasis for most of that. Sleeping. And now he was awake, and reformed into flesh and blood, a fact that hit Blaine a lot harder than it should be. Flesh and blood beings _need_ things, like--like shelter, and food--

“I--would you like some food?” Blaine asked, blurting out his first thought as he pulled a robe from over the back of a kitchen chair, laying it carefully over Kurt’s shoulders. “Um-- _ganate_?”

It didn’t sound quite like it was supposed to, but Kurt smiled anyway, nodding.

“Please.”

He sounded so pleased, speaking Blaine’s language in return for Blaine speaking his, and Blaine grinned again at his happiness. And he’d said please, so Blaine stopped himself from just staring some more and darted for the kitchen, pulling out a platter and emptying some meal capsules onto it. _Pizza_. He put it in the microwave and grabbed another--cheesecake this time. The pizza formed in the microwave and he pulled it free, putting in the dessert-- _give Kurt the best_ _we have_ \--

Kurt snatched the plate of pizza from Blaine’s hands as he turned to offer it and sat on the kitchen chair before the computer, digging in with obvious enjoyment as he booted up the computer with apparent ease and knowledge of its workings. Once it was up, he turned to Blaine.

“Che mero yemalat.” _I must learn_.

“Yes! You--you should research,” Blaine encouraged, leaning over Kurt to load up an online encyclopedia. As he pulled back, Kurt’s shoulder brushed his side, and Blaine became very aware of that spot, looking down and touching it with his hand, _Kurt touched him there_ , and by all the gods of the ancients could he have a bigger crush, and on a _Supreme Being_ no less?

He shook his head and looked around for anything else he could do to help Kurt while he began to scroll through the articles with breakneck speed. It was Blaine’s job to help, he was going to do it, even if he would prefer to just stare at him forever. “Yes--um--I can get you--clothes--”

“Semala a’tu ley!” Kurt crowed around the pizza in his mouth, smiling and chewing. He hadn’t quite reached _etiquette_ yet, he was still early in his research, but Blaine kind of hoped he never did if he would keep acting so comfortable around him. “Please. Kay’lu fa’chet a may.”

_I love clothes! Please. Bring me whatever you have._

Blaine felt like his heart would explode with excitement. Kurt liked clothes. He could provide that, he could give something useful and enjoyable for the Supreme Being, who was turning out to be more and more human by the moment, a fact that had Blaine’s head spinning and running too fast.

“Of course. I--will be right back.”

He turned and all but ran to the back room, blowing by his acolyte Sam, who was listening to music and bobbing his head along as he sewed up a garment haphazardly.

“Whoa--dude, is everything alright--”

Blaine spared him a glance. He’d pulled out his earphones and was looking at Blaine like he’d gone mad. And maybe he had--he felt strangely feverish, too-quick and jittery, as though if he stayed here too long Kurt would be gone when he got back. So he had to hurry, he had to go back and make sure--

“Sam, I need--I need clothes, anything--” he started rooting through the closet, pulling out anything he could get his hands on. But they were all priests’ clothes, rough and poor and humble just like him, _not good enough for Kurt_ \--

“Whoa, just--hold on,” Sam said, coming up behind him. “We have donations and stuff up here, who are they for?”

He pulled down a box and Blaine just reached in and gathered them all up into his arms, laughing delightedly.

“Sam, he’s here,” Blaine breathed. “The Supreme Being--he’s here, he survived the crash, and he came looking for me--”

“Are you serious?” Sam asked, eyes going huge as his jaw dropped. “Oh my god. Blaine, you’ve been waiting for this--”

“I know,” Blaine agreed. “But he’s--he’s _perfect_ , Sam, and he’s been waiting so much longer than I have, so--I have to help him, I have to--”

“Dude, go,” Sam urged, shoving him back toward the door, picking up the clothes Blaine dropped on his way and grabbing some shoes from the closet to add. “No time to _waste_.”

 

\---

 

Kurt was ignoring them. Blaine didn’t mind--he’d set the clothes aside and, lacking anything else to do while Kurt did his research, was drawn in like a planet finding his sun. Sam stood behind him, watching as well, but as far as Blaine was concerned, nothing else existed but Kurt, looking through the articles and stopping on occasion when something caught his attention, reacting and imitating and absorbing with his galaxy eyes, his lips and teeth closing around bites of the fifth slice of pizza.

Blaine revelled in his presence. He really was perfect--but he was mortal now, too, perfectly made, but absolutely present in an imperfect world. Absolutely human. Once his job was done, what would happen, Blaine wondered? His texts said nothing--they assumed either the end of the universe, or its continued existence with the Ultimate Evil destroyed. After that, The Fifth Element would no longer be needed, the Supreme Being would have either served his purpose or perished in the attempt.

What would happen to Kurt, once he was no longer mankind’s possession? As far as Blaine knew, he couldn’t return to stasis--and why would he? There would be nothing to wait for, if he succeeded.

Blaine vowed then, quietly and more fervently than he ever had in all his years of priesthood, to help Kurt succeed. Blaine's purpose was so much more real with its focus before him, imitating a martial arts move and giving a quiet battle cry along with it before continuing to scroll.

“Um, Blaine--Father,” Sam amended, realizing this was official business, and Blaine was his superior. “We don’t have much time.”

And Sam was right. There was business to attend, information Blaine needed to get their plans in motion.

“You’re right,” Blaine said, fiddling with the key he kept on a thick string around his neck--his most precious charge, until Kurt was carried over his doorstep.

He stepped closer to Kurt and leaned over a little to catch his eye.

“Um--Kurt?” Kurt blinked and turned to Blaine, as though drawing himself out of his research with difficulty. “I’m sorry to bother you, but--but I have to ask. Where is the case? With the--the Stones.”

The elemental Stones, the keys to the weapon that would save them all. Kurt was supposed to arrive with them in his possession, along with the Daltonians, but--but the Daltonians had perished, and the duty to protect and aid had fallen to the keeper of the key to the Sacred Chamber--Blaine, and Blaine alone.

“Sana gamachi bet,” Kurt said. “E’vulet.”

_The case is gone. Stolen._

“Stolen?”

Kurt nodded, humming, and returned to his research with visible calm. But Blaine’s breath was stolen from his body--whoever had stolen that case had stolen this universe’s redemption.

“Who in the name of the gods would do such a thing.”

Blaine pulled back and started to pace, thinking hard. Behind him, Sam began to offer Kurt the clothes they’d brought, but this was _important_ , they _needed_ the Stones--

A visit from an art dealer the month before came to mind, curious about the Stones. And Blaine’s suspicions rose; it was the only incident he could remember of someone even _knowing_ about the Stones. The ancient tomes were available, of course, to any who wished to read them, but they would have to search long and hard for them without going to Blaine directly, and that woman--she’d known far more than anyone else Blaine had met outside of the Order.

He’d--he’d have to check it out, as nervous as it made him. That woman--what had her name been?

“Dank’oo,” Kurt said behind him, and Blaine turned--that was _English_ , sort of, and he smiled at Kurt. Kurt had thanked _him_.

“You’re welcome,” he said, watching as Kurt rose and rifled through the clothes. He pulled out a few pieces, his grin growing wider as he looked over his selections, and he giggled as he set them separately from his rejections.

“Ooo, dank’oo,” Kurt hummed again, and right in front them, he dropped the robe and unsnapped his thermal bandages, which fell away and revealed-- _oh_ \--

Blaine whirled away entirely out of respect, and he found Sam beside him, whistling.

“Wow,” he said. “They really make him--uh--”

“Perfect,” Blaine finished. It was absolutely true--what he’d glimpsed--what Sam, a straight man, had glimpsed--it was definitely worth appreciating. But--

 _Ecto gamut._ Kurt had not offered explicit permission, he didn’t understand yet how their society felt about sex, he hadn’t figured out their customs, so Blaine would offer him a chance for modesty, just in case.

_Oh god his legs his hips his thighs his--_

“Blaine, ekse’kibat. I’mala toba undalat.”

Blaine turned around. _Don’t worry, Blaine. I know where the stones are._

“He says he knows where the stones are.”

_Knock knock knock._

_Not again_.

He went to the door and opened it _just_ enough to look out. A small, sardonic-looking blonde girl stood with her arms crossed, hip cocked. Her red-and-white leather jacket matched the uniforms of the four girls behind her, but they were clearly subservient.

“Weddings?”-- _Please say yes and go away_ \--"Because I'm not that kind of priest, but if you need a referral--"

The girl raised an eyebrow.

“Not really. You Blaine Anderson?”

“Who are you?”

“Ms. Sylvester wants to see you.”

Blaine’s heart pattered a quick rhythm in his chest and stomach as it sank down. Sylvester--the “art dealer” who’d asked about the stones. It couldn’t be a coincidence.

And he couldn’t deny her. She had the goons to just grab him, and if they came inside, they’d see Kurt, and--

“Okay. I’ll come.”

He peeked his head back into the apartment and nodded. He’d have to wait to hear about the Stones from Kurt.

“I’ll be right back.”

Kurt’s eyes stayed on him as he went. 


	4. Interlude 1

_Dear Journal,_

_I believe I have just witnessed the death of thousands of baby ducklings on the head of one Blaine Anderson. The depths of his folly are clear in the stimulating lubrication smeared over his oddly delicate head, and what's more, it DIDN'T WORK. The man is a raging moron, and he only figured out now that I'm not an art dealer. Please. Sue Sylvester doesn't deal in anything but misery._

_But journal, I had to let him leave intact. I would have gladly removed at least thirty percent of his handsome limbs, but he saved my life when an unblended bit of protein grass stuck in my throat. I would have perished but for his aid. So he lives to be flamingly good looking another day._

_But I will be keeping one eye trained on him. He'll find the Stones eventually. I just have to wait for the moment to take them from his perfectly manicured little hands._


	5. Chapter 3

Kurt clicked on the picture of a music note. It played a tune on instruments he’d never heard before, lovely and soothing, Diva Racheberi’s melodious alien voice molding into sounds that humans--and even Daltonians--couldn’t manage. Kurt tried to replicate the sounds and found, to his delight, that he was able to hit every single note, no matter how improbable. He hummed the tune to himself as he continued to scroll through the massive archives of human history on the computerized box Blaine had shown him. It was rustic, something a baby might use in Daltonia, but Kurt found he was able to absorb the information rather quickly and easily. Say what one will about humans, they were still some of the most fascinating creatures in the cosmos.

Their languages were simple but surprisingly rich, their religions either overwhelmingly expansive or exhaustingly constrictive, with very little middle ground. And their _food--_

Kurt licked his lips as he found a passage on cheese-making, and put the tablet down to go and search out another of the cheese-bread concoctions that Blaine had given him several hours earlier. He wasn’t sure what it was called; he hadn’t gotten that far yet.

“Cheese?”

Sam leapt to his feet, tangling them in his robe and nearly falling flat on his face before Kurt swooped in and neatly caught him.

“Um, thanks. I...did you say _cheese?”_

Kurt nodded. Perhaps he should take pains to approach humans less silently. He had forgotten how jumpy they could be. “The...the cheese. Blaine give me. Good and...and round. I...more? Please?”

Sam smiled, smoothing his robes and heading toward the kitchen. “Sure. I think you’re talking about pizza, but it could be cheesecake.”

“Cheese _cake?”_ Kurt gasped. “I try. Try all cheese. Please, Sam?”

Sam stared at Kurt for a moment, then shook his head with a chuckle. “You know, I’m pretty much straight as they come, but...you really are perfect, you know? Blaine is _done_ for.”

Kurt furrowed his brows, puzzled by the language, but his confusion was soon forgotten when Sam pulled a capsule from a cabinet and something from the cold box where reconstituted and fresh food seemed to be kept.

“I’ll just pop this in the microwave for you,” Sam said, holding up the pizza capsule, “and the cheesecake is from before. Blaine made it for you but you seemed pretty full after eating a whole pizza, so. The cheesecake is dessert, it comes _after-”_

But Kurt had stopped listening. Because he had dipped a fork into the cheesecake, and felt his eyes physically roll back from pleasure as he tasted it for the first time.

Yes, humans were a magnificent species, if they could invent something that tasted like _that._

Sam tried to take the cheesecake from him--something about cutting it into triangles, which served absolutely no purpose that Kurt could think of--but Kurt clutched it tight, unable to suppress the possessive growl that rose up in his throat. Sam put his hands up in surrender, eyes wide, and backed away slowly.

Kurt called his thanks after Sam, alternating between bites of pizza and cheesecake as he returned his attention to the computer.

He finished reading about cheesemaking and quickly moved on to basket weaving, textile production, and methods of waterproofing, fascinated at the quick progression humans had made from hand-made items to those mass-produced by machine. In some ways, the humans were clearly far too advanced for their own good. The blanket of smog covering the lower half of the city was evidence enough of that, and as he read about the ongoing destruction of natural resources, Kurt wasn’t sure how the species continued to survive at all.

And as he followed phrases linking one piece of information to another, his chest began to tighten, because with or without cheesecake, with or without his mission, with or without the name _(Blaine Anderson Blaine Anderson Blaine Anderson)_ tattooed onto his very essence, Kurt simply couldn’t dismiss the one nagging question that simply would not leave him alone:

Did they even _deserve_ to survive?

Because yes, there was philanthropy and sacrifice and reform. But as one horrific subject gave way to another (infanticide, matricide), Kurt couldn’t help but wonder what truly lay at the foundation of human nature (war crimes,collateral damage). Blaine and Sam and even Puck had seemed kind, but the humans in the place where Kurt had awoken had been anything but (assault, torture). No wonder the Darkness was so utterly fixated on humanity’s home planet. As much as it teemed with life, it also pulsed with a voracious appetite for complete self-destruction.

A picture of a little girl came onto the screen, a little girl that had clearly been _hurt on purpose by adults_ , and Kurt’s shaking hands flew to his face, the desperate sob that wrenched its way out of him followed by another and yet another, until he was clutching at himself and shaking hard as the tears cascaded down his cheeks. What was this world? Was he far too late? Was there even anything left to save?

“Hey.” Kurt lurched, looking up to see Blaine’s blurry form through his tears. He wiped at his eyes hastily with the backs of his hands and attempted to smile.

“Kurt, what are you... _oh._ Oh, Kurt. I’m so sorry you had to see this, it isn’t--”

“What are--your people?” Kurt whispered.

“I...there have always been terrible things in this world, Kurt, things people do to one another. But there is so much beauty too. So much good in the world.”

“What good?” Kurt asked, swallowing down a lump in his throat.

Blaine smiled and pulled up a chair beside Kurt’s. “May I?” he asked softly, gently prying the keypad from Kurt’s fingers and typing in something new.

“See this?” Blaine asked, pointing to another little girl on the screen, this one with strange metal arms and holding a tiny animal. “This little girl got into a really bad accident and lost her arms. Her family couldn’t afford robotic arms, so her whole town spent almost two years raising the money to make it happen. She’s holding Buttercup, the kitten her parents got for her when she had enough control over her arms to care for him.”

Kurt couldn’t help but smile, touching his fingertips lightly to the image on the screen.

“And look at this. These kids have no parents--they’ve left them or passed away, and these elderly people have no family to care for them. The government was finally persuaded to join the orphanage and nursing home into one facility, and the results are incredible. Look at these pictures, before they had each other. Now look at this one. Look at their faces, Kurt. They love each other. They’re _helping_ each other.”

Kurt swallowed the strange lump in his throat, tears stinging at the backs of his eyes. “There is good,” he whispered.

“There is good,” Blaine affirmed with a smile.

“And cheesecake,” Kurt added, wiping a stray tear from his smiling face. “Cheesecake _very_ good.”

Blaine laughed. “I definitely won’t argue with you there. And hold on to your hat--” Kurt patted a hand to his hatless head and frowned in confusion. “--because you haven’t even seen my collection of favorite baby animal pictures yet.”

Blaine clicked open the album on the screen, revealing a group of fuzzy, frolicking baby bunnies. Kurt pushed his fist against his mouth and _squealed._

  
\---

 

After nearly an hour’s worth of baby animal pictures and videos (how had Kurt even lived without _kittens?_ He would have to ask Blaine where he could get a kitten. He very much needed to experience holding one), Blaine turned to Kurt and cleared his throat, his face going serious.

“Kurt. You said you know where the Stones are. Are they safe? Do you know where to find them?”

Kurt nodded happily, padding over to the refrigerator to fetch more cheesecake.

“Stones in ship. Ship kaboom. Mangalores make ship kaboom.” Kurt mimed the explosion, tamping down his frustration at still not being able to quite master Blaine’s language as skillfully as he would like.

“They...they are destroyed?” Blaine whispered, his eyes wide with horror. “But I thought you said--”

Kurt shook his head furiously, a jolt of pain snapping through his heart at the sight of Blaine’s expression.

“No. Stones in case. Mangalores steal case. But.” Kurt held one finger up and took a bite of cheesecake, sighing into the pleasure of the taste before continuing.

“But?” Blaine urged.

“But. Daltonians smart. We know Mangalores shoot ship. We know humans in uniforms might keep Stones away. Daltonians too smart to trust. Case is empty.” Kurt couldn’t help but cackle at the thought of Mangalore pirates going to such trouble--causing such _destruction--_ only to find themselves with a briefcase full of nothing.

“It...but where are are the Stones? They are _safe,_ aren’t they, Kurt?”

“Safe,” Kurt confirmed. “With friend. Diva Racheberi. She keep Stones safe.”

“Diva...but the Diva lives in the Lapris Star Belt. That’s _galaxies_ away, Kurt!”

Kurt shook his head. “Racheberi stay close. She know we need. She perform on….” Kurt waved his hand, trying to recall what the thing was called, “on your music and food boats.” Blaine furrowed his eyebrows. “Music food boat on beach moon?” Kurt supplied, racking his brain. “Closest beach moon.”

“Do you mean a _cruise_ ship?” Blaine asked, narrowing his eyes.

“Yes!” Kurt agreed happily, clapping his hands together at their mutual understanding.

“Nyada Paradise is the closest resort moon,” Blaine murmured, almost to himself, looking the information up on the computer in front of them. He clicked around a bit before declaring, “Here!” Kurt crowded in to see, smiling in recognition at the picture of Diva Racheberi on the screen. “It seems she will be giving a performance…” Blaine muttered something under his breath, frustrated. “She will be giving a performance in two days’ time. How on earth are we going to find a way onto Nyada Paradise before then? Those tickets are _impossible_ to score.” Blaine looked at Kurt helplessly, and Kurt could only shrug in return.

“Any ideas at all?” Blaine asked with a sigh.

Kurt shook his head. “My ship…” Kurt mimicked the blast with his hands.

“Yeah. Kaboom. I know. If only-”

“Puck!”

Blaine looked around in confusion, but Kurt was too excited to communicate the information in front of him to Blaine verbally. Instead he pointed at the screen. There was a bar on the side of the screen full of what seemed to be different news items related to Racheberi’s performance. And there, right before his eyes, was written the name of the man that had saved him, the man who had made indecorous advances toward him, the man who had brought him to Blaine.

It seemed that one Noah Puckerman--due to some coincidence that Kurt refused to believe was a coincidence at all--had won a contest of some sort. And the prize--

“Two tickets to the Diva’s performance on Nyada Paradise,” Blaine breathed, clicking to expand the story.

“We take,” Kurt said firmly.

“We--”

“Take.” Kurt affirmed. “No Stones, no Earth, no Puck. Better for him if we take. Better for all.”

Blaine flashed him a little smile, his eyes dancing with mischief. “I believe the word you’re looking for, Kurt, is _steal.”_

“Take,” Kurt corrected firmly. Supreme beings do not _steal,_ after all.

Blaine laughed. “We’ll have to wait until it gets dark, in any case. There are people looking for you, and it will be much safer at night. That will also give us some time to make a solid plan.”

“Yes. This night we go,” Kurt agreed. He pulled the keyboard toward himself and began another search. Tonight they may have a world to save, but in the meantime, there were kitten videos.


	6. Chapter 4

Blaine passed the time till darkness with old texts. He knew his duties backwards and forwards, but it could never hurt to check, and it kept him calmed from the agitated state he went into when he realized he would have to confront that—that bear of a cab driver.

Blaine was—very small. And that man—Puck—was very, very big.

“No worry.”

Blaine looked up from his tome with a smile instantly on his lips at the sound of Kurt’s voice.

“I’m sorry?”

Kurt sat in the chair across from him that Sam had abandoned in favor of the kitchen and looked at him frankly.

“No worry. Puck, no problem. I get ticket.”

Kurt smiled reassuringly, and Blaine couldn’t help but give a breathy laugh.

“Am I that obvious?”

Kurt pouted as though considering before giving him a sly smile.

“Little obvious.”

Blaine burst out laughing, covering his face and rubbing over his eyes and cheeks.

“You tired. Get sleep.”

Kurt stood, and Blaine sighed and shook his head.

“I should keep studying—“

“No more study. You know. Sleep.”

Kurt had a point. Blaine did know. Sam would benefit more from this than he would.

“What will you do?” he asked.

“I study,” Kurt said judiciously. “I know.”

“You are a remarkably quick student,” Blaine offered. “If you have any questions, you’ll ask me?”

Kurt appeared to think for a moment.

“You—young priest. Where is teacher?”

Blaine gasped uncontrollably at the question. He hadn’t thought about that in—years. But Kurt wanted to know, and one of his duties was to educate the Supreme Being. He supposed this was teaching him something, in a way.

“He—he left,” Blaine said. “He broke his oath to the Order and I haven’t heard from him since.”

“He was bad?”

“No,” Blaine answered instantly. “No, he wasn’t…he wasn’t bad. But he had waited a long time, and he—he didn’t think you were coming. He thought the world would just…end. And he didn’t want to wait around for something…something he wasn’t sure about. He gave up a lot for this life and in the end…he just wasn’t willing to keep giving.”

“But you give.”

Blaine cleared his throat and shrugged.

“I believe.”

There was a long moment of eye contact between them, and Blaine felt as though Kurt were studying him. So he let him.

And then Kurt smiled and started toward the door back out into the living area, long-limbed grace and unselfconscious beauty.

“Sleep. I learn by self now. I Supreme.”

Blaine laughed again.

“That you are.”

 

\---

 

Blaine took a nap. He did exactly as Kurt said, and he slept. When he woke, it was just getting on from evening into the night, the light fading past his dusty curtains. And apparently Sam had the same idea, or Kurt ordered him to sleep as well, because he was sprawled out on his own bed, snoring. Blaine smiled at that, and trying not to break the quiet in the apartment, tiptoed out of the back rooms.

Just behind the partition between the rooms, shielded from the light, Blaine halted and took in what was happening at the computer.

Kurt stared at something, leaning back in his chair and holding himself across the chest, hands clasping his shoulders. He was hunched strangely, completely intent on the screen, his head tilted just a little bit, his lips parted and shining faintly in the red sunset light from the windows.

And the speakers were—making some interesting noises, to say the least.

It sounded like kissing. The soft, wet little sounds of mouths meeting, something that Blaine had only experienced once himself, when he was very young and still a simple acolyte. Perhaps fifteen, sixteen years since he’d felt lips against his own, the first and only time, before his mentor had caught him and scolded him for letting himself be distracted. Blaine had not known at the time that it was mere bitterness and not a sacred oath that had Father Schuester angry at him for it. He had sworn off romance himself then, ashamed of himself until Will had run off to be with a performer on a cruise ship. Now, he felt no shame, only a wistful longing.

That same longing was on Kurt’s face. He stared at the screen intently, tongue darting out to wet his lips as he watched, the people on the screen progressing from mere kisses to soft moans and whines. Two _men_ , if Blaine could judge.

Kurt—Kurt was watching gay men kissing. Men like Blaine, who had been denied the feeling of another man’s embrace for a decade and a half, from perhaps the very moment that his desires had awoken.

And it wasn’t stopping. The moans grew louder, more demanding, more desperate, and Kurt shifted in his chair and bit his lip, squeezing himself tighter and staring intensely as the men on the screen started to become more intimate.

Blaine could wholly recognize what Kurt was looking at. He had looked at it himself often enough. He wouldn’t have even been surprised if Kurt had found it in his net history, seeking to learn more and finding— _this_.

He shouldn’t have been watching this. He should have turned around and gone back in his room and given Kurt privacy until Kurt came to fetch him. He deserved to be alone for this moment.

But Blaine found himself rooted, telling himself that he needed to be on hand in case Kurt became confused or scared. He needed to be able to explain if Kurt needed him. It would have almost been a believable excuse, until a loud groan came from the computer and Kurt leaned forward sharply, hands gripping the edge of the desk, his eyes wide, his lungs gasping in breath as he trembled.

Blaine almost stopped him, almost went to see if he was okay. But Kurt would ask if he needed him. Kurt would know.

And then, hesitantly, wonderingly, Kurt sat up and pushed his suspenders from his shoulders and stripped his t-shirt.

Blaine couldn’t look away.

Kurt sat back, skin glowing blue as the sun sank below the horizon somewhere outside, the twilight and city lights fading into night time, the smoke and smog between the buildings rising and claiming the streets and flyways, tingeing the world with melancholy. And that little cloaking, that illusion of being hidden from the rest of the world, seemed to unlock something in Kurt, who started to touch his body with quivering hands, stroking his chest and stomach with eyes still focused on the computer.

Without a thought, lost in his clandestine focus, Blaine followed his movements, hands pressing to his body over his rough, humble clothing.

He followed Kurt as he touched more boldly, lower and stronger and heavier as his breath sped up, hitching and aching to be quiet as the speakers spilled louder and louder sounds from the men in the video, until Kurt seemed to decide something and tremulously peeled down his pants.

He—he was _perfect_. Long and hard, flushed against his pale hand that tested out his grip before settling, following the movements on screen and drawing a surprised gasp from him when he felt what that could make him feel. Blaine followed him, ashamed but unwilling to break this moment, hand slipping into his pants and grasping himself, hard and dripping with arousal, aching for the touch of—someone else, of—

\--of Kurt, panting and moaning breathlessly, touching himself and aware of nothing but the images before him and the feeling soaring through his body, and Blaine stroked himself quickly, guiltily, hardly daring to breathe for staying out of sight and out of earshot as Kurt writhed and rocked in his chair, face transporting to somewhere else, to somewhere beautiful and consuming as his arm tensed and sped its movements, matching the sounds of skin slapping together on the screen.

Blaine could thank all that was holy that Kurt found something gentle and reverent, a video Blaine could recognize now as one of his own favorites, rather than the mélange of far filthier videos available to anyone who searched. He could have thanked all the gods past and present, but he was lost in Kurt, the only deity he’d offer his life to. He’d make any sacrifice to continue hearing the high-pitched whimpers falling from his throat as he thrust up, squeezed himself hard and came, long strings up onto his stomach, his eyes wide and staring up at the ceiling as he felt that ultimate release for what Blaine was sure was the first time.

Blaine would give anything to give that to Kurt himself, to show him how humanity could feel intimacy, and Kurt could show him, they could learn this together—

He bit back a sob and came in his pants, the shame flooding him, drawing blood from his groin and sending it to his face, his blush heavy as he realized what he’d truly done. A violation—something Kurt had not asked for.

 _Ecto gamut_.

Blaine turned and darted into the bathroom, no longer caring to be silent, and locked the door before sinking down to the floor and weeping for the fact that that was all he’d ever be able to have from Kurt—something stolen, just one moment.

And he couldn’t feel sorry for it, not in his deepest core. Because that _was_ all he’d ever get.

He’d fallen in love with a Supreme Being, not a day after meeting him. Blaine was _screwed_.

“Um—Blaine—“

He wiped his eyes and coughed.

“I’ll be right out,” he called back to Sam, standing and straightening himself out.

He had to face his duty. There was work to be done.


	7. Interlude 2

_Dear Journal,_

_There are games afoot. The tiny monk and his twinky porcelain godling are readying to meet with the most annoying creature in the galaxy--the Diva Noseberi. At least that's what I named her after I saw her last performance. She's lucky I couldn't hear her through my custom endangered alligator ear plugs._

_She must have the Stones. It makes perfect sense. No one would risk losing their eardrums around that screeching bluebottle. But I've got the Mangalores under my thumb, and thankfully their taste in music is just as awful as the Diva's. They'll be able to infiltrate the ship and deliver the Stones to me while I wait just outside of orbit. Meanwhile, Kitty will be entering the ship with a fake multipass as the winner of that stupid contest. I need a soldier on the ground, and she is ruthless enough to get the job done._

_There will be no more screwups. The Darkness grows impatient, and the mysterious black goop that leaks from seemingly nowhere is impossible to clean out of my precious tracksuits. You know true evil when it drives up your dry cleaning bill to these heights._


	8. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art for this chapter by the lovely and talented Riverance!

“This is making me _very nervous,_ ” Blaine muttered softly, his eyes darting around the cavernous hallway. It was much dimmer and dirtier than the hallway leading to Blaine’s apartment, with muffled noises emitting from behind the hundreds of identical doors that lined the walls.

“Four twenty six, Abraham Spiraldi,” Kurt read, running his hand along each brightly-colored metal door as they passed it. “Four twenty eight, Destiny Whitmore-Smith. Four twenty nine, Piper Chiang Noscoe. Four th-”

“Kurt,” Blaine cut in. “We should be careful. Maybe...um...more quiet. We don’t know why Puck won that ticket, but the odds of it being a coincidence are probably two billion to one. There’s something off about this whole thing, and I don’t--”

“Blaine. What is _my_ name?” Kurt asked, pausing and turning to face Blaine, his fingers resting on the placard that read _430\. Xavier P. Nbuchasa._

Blaine smiled, and it made Kurt’s skin tingle just to behold it. “Kurt,” he said, and Kurt felt himself tingle even _more_ at the sound of his name on Blaine’s lips, lips that Kurt was beginning to notice were quite pleasantly rosy and plump.

Actually, Blaine was quite an aesthetically pleasing human being overall. Kurt wondered why it had taken him so long to truly notice it..

“What else, though? Not just Kurt. What is the rest?”

“The...I could write it down for you, but I’d probably embarrass myself trying to say the whole thing out loud,” Blaine admitted, his cheeks going a bit pink..

“Not…” Kurt waved a hand impatiently. “Not name like this,” he clarified, gesturing to Xavier P. Nbuchasa’s nameplate. “More. Who I am. What you say when you speak of me to Sam.”

“You mean your...title? Supreme Being? The Fifth Element?”

“Yes,” Kurt affirmed, reaching out to squeeze Blaine’s hand. “I Fifth Element. Perfect being. Perfect at hurting, if I have to. I keep you safe, Blaine. Good fighter. Strong. I never tired. When I with you, you not have fear.”

Blaine just stared at him for a moment, his expression far too complicated and distinctly human for Kurt to really understand, but there was so _much_ in it. If they didn’t have a civilization to rescue, Kurt could happily spend years on this planet just trying to figure out Blaine’s eyes. They seemed to be full of secrets that weren’t really secrets at all. More like puzzle pieces. Clues. Kurt took a deep breath and felt his own cheeks heat up, for no reason that he could identify, before turning to continue on their way, keeping Blaine’s hand firmly in his own as they walked.

By the time they reached _612\. Noah Puckerman_ , Blaine had relaxed considerably. Kurt eagerly raised his fist to knock--a human convention he’d both seen and read about and was excited to try--when it occurred to him that Blaine had been right. They both knew that Puck winning this prize was no coincidence, after all. Precautions only made sense. Kurt pried the nameplate from the door, and gestured to Blaine to do the same to a neighboring door. Blaine furrowed his brow in confusion.

“Kurt, what--”

“Switch names. No one find us.”

“Right. Good idea,” Blaine agreed, moving to peel the name from 614.

“I wish you safety, Norwell Brightman,” Kurt said somberly, hoping no harm came to the human who was inadvertently helping them on their mission. He pressed Norwell’s name firmly onto Puck’s door, then raised his fist and gave it three very satisfying knocks.

The door slid open to reveal two main points of interest to Kurt. The first was that Puck and Blaine’s actual living quarters were so dissimilar that they may as well have been on different planets. Puck appeared to be living in a compact, oval-shaped room, in which nearly everything was some version of two or three things combined into one, and most of these things were tucked into rounded white walls. A rumpled bed in a large drawer protruded from one wall, while several slightly smaller drawers above it remained closed. Kurt was sure that he spied a shower head protruding from the underside of the sink, and an all-purpose network screen was installed on the front of what looked like a smaller version of Blaine’s cold box beneath a compact microwave. The room’s one window took up the entire far wall, a chair and long, thin table in front of it holding the remains of a meal recently purchased from a food ship.

The second thing that caught Kurt’s immediate attention was that Puck was not alone.

In the room with Puck stood an imposing woman, wearing the very same beige and maroon outfit as those who had contained and pursued Kurt when he had first awoken. Despite his brave words to Blaine in the hallway, he found himself clutching Blaine’s hand more tightly, fighting to keep his breath even, nearly every fiber of his being screaming at him to _run._

“Oh! Um, hello,” Blaine stammered, discreetly tucking the taser he had pulled out back into the folds of his robes. “I...was hoping to have a word with Puck about his...um...upcoming vacation.”

Puck narrowed his eyes at the woman. “This got something to do with them?” he asked.

“‘Bout as much as a chicken’s got to do with a ham dinner,” she replied. “Blaine Anderson, what the hell do you think you’re doing in a dive like this?”

“Hey!” Puck protested. The woman raised an eyebrow at him.

“Sorry. Guess I’ve seen worse. You know, on Hecate 6 the natives live in these caves filled with a porous gel that protects them from--”

“What? Oh. Yeah. This place is a shithole. No argument there. I just meant that you stepped on my last cigarette.”

“And it’s gonna stay stepped on until you listen to reason, punkin,” the woman said. “We’re talking about the fate of the world here.” She turned to Kurt and Blaine. “So if you boys would excuse us--”

“Lieutenant Bieste,” Blaine interrupted. “With all due respect, and all respect to Madame President, _we’re_ here to save the world. Noah can’t do it without us.”

Puck snorted. “Oh really? Because I don’t recall crashing _your_ pad since I dropped off Tall, Pale and Pretty over here, begging for _your_ help.”

Something about the appreciation in Puck’s eyes as they raked over Kurt made a thrill shoot through him, a momentary flash of the video he’d seen earlier that night (all that hot hard male skin, _gods_ ) flashing across his mind. Blaine’s hand tightened in his.

“President,” Kurt suddenly piped up, information snapping into place as he let the image fade from his mind. “President Emma Pillsbury, presiding over the Federation of Planets in Star Belt S-K-5-Delta-3.”

The woman laughed, and it was bright and kind. “That’s right, cutie. Who are you?”

Kurt didn't blink. “I Fifth Element. Supreme Being. You call me Kurt.”

Blaine sucked in a breath sharply beside him. Kurt stared at the woman resolutely. He wasn't sure what it was that made him trust her so innately (despite the red and maroon outfit), but he had decided to do it, and there was no turning back now.

The woman slowly pulled her hat from her head, and held it in front of her heart. She ran her hand through her curls and _stared._ “You--you’re that kid they reconstructed from the Daltonian crash. The one that escaped unscathed from one of the most secure facilities in the known universe. The--the ultimate weapon.”

“Weapon,” Kurt agreed, nodding.

“Jesus, kid, we’ve been looking _everywhere_ for you, do you know that?”

“Yes,” Kurt acknowledged. “But not safe too many know here. Is best you don’t tell.”

She stared at him for another moment, and then barked out a sharp laugh. “Well, curl my carnations and call it popcorn, boy, you are something else. Lieutenant Shannon Beiste. Pleasure to meet you.” Shannon held out her hand and Kurt grasped it quickly, shaking it vigorously because he’d been _waiting_ for the opportunity to try a handshake.

“Wait. You two knew where he was this entire time?” Shannon demanded, rounding on Puck and Blaine, who both shrunk back incrementally.

“My allegiance is to the Supreme Being,” Blaine defended, “not the galactic government.”

“And I didn’t know he was some perfect being or whatever. Although with that ass, I probably should have,” Puck added with a wink.

Blaine scowled. “Show some respect, Mr. Puckerman,” he hissed.

“Emma has been going _crazy,_ she’s up there right now, hand-cleaning every piece of silverware in the president’s mansion and putting together pamphlets about the end of the world. _Pamphlets._ Like we’re living in the stone age or somethin’. I gotta at least tell her that I found you.”

Kurt turned to Blaine, his eyes seeming to communicate his confusion.

“We don’t know if it’s safe to tell the president,” Blaine replied gently. “There are probably spies-”

“Of _course_ there are spies. I’m just talkin’ about Emma herself. Just so she can focus on running the world again instead of preparing for the end of it.”

Blaine bit his lip. “Okay,” he finally agreed. “But _only_ the president. Not even her closest advisors. If Kurt and I are going to retrieve the stones--”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Shannon protested, holding up a hand. “Our perfect punkin here will be doing no such thing. We can’t risk his safety.”

Kurt shook his head. “I go,” he said firmly. “I go to Nyada Paradise with Blaine Anderson.”

“But-”

“I go.”

Shannon sighed, scratching her head. “There are two tickets. I was gonna pose as Mrs. Puckerman, but maybe we can discuss Puck taking you instead.”

“Yeah, well, we never finished _discussing_ whether Puck was agreeing to this mission in the first place,” Puck chimed in, darting down to pluck his cigarette from the floor as Shannon began to pace. “I’m retired, Shannon. I’m a civilian now. I’ve got my cab--”

“You lost your license,” Shannon answered flatly. “And your cab’s about ready to fall out of the sky with or without you regardless. You’re broke, you’re in debt, you need work. We need a highly trained operative that we can trust. What’s the problem?”

“I’m just saying that we hadn’t discussed payment yet--”

“No.” Kurt interrupted. “I take Blaine. Must take Blaine.” Why didn’t these humans understand? Blaine was written into Kurt’s very essence, he played a crucial role in saving the planet (if it was to be saved after all), and it was Kurt’s responsibility to protect him. He may not understand why, entirely, but that didn’t matter. Leaving Blaine behind was simply not an option.

“Punkin--” Shannon began.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Puck growled, taking a drag off his cigarette. He walked over to his mail tube and pulled out a thick envelope, thrusting it into Blaine’s hands. “Take the goddamn things! I don’t want to deal with all the interviews and appearances the contest winner’s gotta deal with anyway. We just gotta get you fake IDs, but that’s easy. I know a guy.”

“Um...interviews and appearances?” Blaine asked weakly, dread seeming to spread across his face as he inspected the contents of the envelope.

“You guys save the world. I’ll just sneak on board and cover you. And you’re still paying me,” he added, pointing at Shannon with his cigarette.

Blaine raised an eyebrow skeptically. “And how exactly are you planning to sneak aboard?” he asked.

Puck took another drag and grinned. “Where there’s a stewardess there’s a way, my friend,” he said, wagging his eyebrows.

Blaine rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to respond, but was quickly silenced by Puck holding up a hand and whipping his face toward the door. Kurt’s entire body had gone rigid, his head craned toward the door as well, eyes round and enormous. He very much reminded Blaine of a startled cat.

Puck slowly advanced to the network screen on his refrigerator, typed in a quick code, and swore under his breath when it gave him a view of the hallway outside his apartment, which was being stormed by army police in combat gear.

Or... _were_ they army police? Because the uniforms were spot on, but the people wearing them looked quite distinctly like--

“Mangalores,” Shannon muttered.

Kurt narrowed his eyes at the screen. “Murderers,” he whispered, willing himself not to physically _shake_ with rage.

Puck let out a long, heavy breath, scrubbing his hand across his scalp. “Okay. Hide.”

Shannon stared at him, agape. “What do you mean _hide?”_ She demanded. “I’m willing to bet my left boot these jokers don’t have clearance to--”

Her voice overlapped with Kurt’s as he shook his head vehemently, and insisted: “No hide. Confront. They serve Darkness. They--”

“Stop it, the both of you!” Kurt turned with surprise to see Blaine, voice more authoritative than he’d ever imagined possible, and eyes fixed and determined. “Puck is right. We don’t have time to check credentials, and we can’t afford to let them see Kurt. Or any of us. Let’s just…” Blaine looked around helplessly for hiding spots as the uniformed creatures grew steadily closer, checking names on doors, demanding that apartment dwellers provide them visuals.

Puck took the opportunity to grab Blaine by the shoulders and throw him down onto the bed, pushing the drawer the bed sat inside back into the wall. Shannon began cursing and protesting as Puck pushed her into the cold box (“Honestly, punkin, if you think I’m going to _fit--”),_ and Kurt was amazed to find that she actually _did_ (barely) fit inside. He wondered how many times Puck had done something like this in the past.

Finally, Puck grasped the underside of the sink, revealing a shower, just as Kurt had thought.

“In you go, Mr. Perfect,” Puck said, pushing Kurt inside and then lowering the shower back into the ground.

Kurt closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around himself, hunching down low. There was still a tiny strip of light at the very top of the shower, and if Kurt had wanted to, he could have stood on his tip-toes and peered through to see what was going on. Instead he curled himself up small on the shower floor, and prayed to the gods that the beasts did not find him. The beasts that served the Darkness, that had shot down his ship, had murdered his friends.

He wondered if any of the Mangalores currently pounding on Puck’s front door had been among those to shoot them down. He physically _ached_ from unfulfilled revenge at the mere idea.

Kurt shifted a bit to try and make himself more comfortable, but he somehow managed to bring the shower spray--the very, _very_ cold shower spray--to life instead. He swallowed his gasp, holding as still as possible in the hopes that the Mangalores currently talking to Puck hadn’t heard anything.

Kurt pressed his lips together and put as much physical focus into not allowing his teeth to chatter as he could possibly manage. He heard the door open, heard Puck interacting with the grunting creatures, his voice so calm he nearly sounded bored. The smell of cigarette smoke wafted into the shower stall.

The door closed more quickly than Kurt had been expecting, (he felt a pang of guilt and hoped that Norwell Brightman wasn't at home), followed by the rolling sound of a drawer, a rustle of plastic and loud, choking gasps. He could barely make out Blaine's voice over the chattering that his own teeth had surrendered to.

“ _...set on auto?...would have taken you two seconds to turn it off...nearly suffocated...”_ Blaine was spitting out his words between panting breaths, and Kurt hugged himself more tightly, his heart rate increasing strangely at the sound of the human's distress.

“ _...sterile wrap feature...get out of the 25_ _th_ _century, Grandpa...”_ Came Puck's reply, and then a clatter and a whoosh of air, and Shannon was shouting at Puck through what sounded like teeth chattering even harder than Kurt's.

Kurt opened his mouth to remind Puck that _he was somewhere uncomfortable too, thank you very much,_ when he heard his own name spoken with increasing urgency, until he felt the cold, wet, miserable little box in which he was huddled start to slide up from the floor. Blaine's robes came into view first, and then his face, his naturally wide eyes even wider with horror and concern.

“Oh, _Kurt.”_ He both looked and sounded like he was about to break down into tears.

Blaine pulled Kurt from the shower, clutching him close and wrapping Kurt up in his warm robes. Blaine smelled spicy and pleasant, and despite the fact that he was still cold and wet, Kurt hadn’t felt this soothed since arriving on Earth.

“Uh, yeah....guess I forgot about the, uh...auto-wash...” Puck mumbled, scratching the back of his neck and smiling sheepishly.

“Auto-wash,” Kurt mumbled, teeth chattering.

“Auto-wash,” Blaine confirmed with a chuckle. Kurt burrowed his face into Blaine's neck, pursuing the scent he found there.

That seemed to make something snap into place for Blaine, and he quickly dropped his arms and stepped back from Kurt, stumbling slightly. “I...um, forgive my impertinence, I--”

Kurt smiled and pressed a finger to Blaine's lips. “No imper--no. You serve me. Make me warm.”

Blaine blushed and opened his mouth to reply, clamping it shut and spinning around suddenly when Kurt began peeling off his wet clothes. Kurt couldn't help but laugh at the way Shannon swept in to catch Blaine before he hurtled face-first into the wall, tangled hopelessly in his own robes. As wise and sweet as Blaine Anderson was, he sometimes made absolutely no sense to Kurt at all.

“Hey, you wanna warn a lady before you put on a free show next time, punkin?” Shannon asked, turning around to face the wall once she had righted Blaine, whose back was also to Kurt, his ears tinged bright scarlet red.

Puck sat down on his bed and leaned back, putting his hands behind his head and leaning back against the wall, his eyes on Kurt the entire time. Kurt raised an eyebrow at him.

“What? You think I'm gonna pass up a free show?”

“Mr. Puckerman, if you do not avert your eyes this _minute,_ I'll...I'll...” Blaine sounded more than a bit shrill.

“You'll what? Actually _turn around?_ Admit you have a dick? I'm shakin' in my boots here, preacher man.”

“Don't be a pervert, son,” Shannon admonished.

Kurt pulled his pants down his legs, hoping he would remember to look up _pervert_ when he next had access to Blaine's tablet. Kurt knew what modesty was – he had read about it, anyway, but it really hadn't made much sense to him without further context. Humans could be strange about their natural state. They behaved as though they were born wearing clothes, and _nudity_ was somehow out of the ordinary.

Once he was completely naked, Kurt squeezed out his clothes, and then held them out to Puck, along with his boots. “Auto-dry,” he instructed firmly.

Because honestly. Did they really expect him to save the world in _wet clothes?_

 

__


	9. Chapter 6

 

Sam stood stiff and awkward amidst the uncaring, busy crowds at the station, hovering near the station bar, a glass of something poisonously blue at his elbow. He stood out, someone who didn’t belong among the garish colors and steam and garbage of the station in his worn but clean priest’s robes, looking around at the people passing by with his mouth in a slight o-shape, his brow furrowed above shifty eyes. But when he saw Blaine and Kurt approaching, he jumped to attention, eyeing their outfits.

Blaine couldn’t pass as Noah Puckerman in sackcloth robes. So Kurt had delightedly stopped them back at Blaine’s apartment with just a few hours to spare before they had to be at the station, and picked out an outfit for him. So there he was, meeting Sam wearing a dark orange tshirt (oh, Kurt’s fondness for orange), a drab tan vest, olive pants, and heavy boots, his hair carelessly styled in waves and making him extremely uncomfortable, to be perfectly honest. But Kurt seemed pleased, and Kurt was the one accompanying him, casually strolling beside him, eyes wide as he took in the wall of discarded trash opposite the ticket booths, the variety of people from all planetary origins in their wild clothing brushing by each other without a thought, the smiling women in their bright blue uniforms guiding and selling tickets and grinning their vacant, polite grins.

“Whoa,” Sam said. “Um. Nice duds.”

“Thank you,” Blaine replied absently. “Do you have the multipasses?”

“Uh--”

“I got ‘em.” Puck ambled up and thrust a manila envelope at Blaine, not even attempting subtlety or caution. “You are now officially me. Don’t fuck it up.”

“I will...do my best,” Blaine promised, pulling out the multipass with his picture and Puck’s name. And Kurt’s-- “Kurt Puckerman?”

“Mazeltov,” Puck said, taking Sam’s drink and knocking it back. “Now, I have a date with a stewardess who’s going to get me on that cruise ship as her personal attendant, if you know what I mean. See you bitches later.”

Blaine coughed. “Isn’t it...um...more accurate to say _flight attendant_ \--”

“Jesus, could you be anymore of a pussy? You’re already soiling the Puckerman name. Nut up, altar boy, and stop giving a shit. Have a shot or something.”

With that, and a hearty slap on Blaine’s back, Puck turned and strode off, heading right to the attendant at the entrance to the boarding deck for the ship to Nyada Paradise. She appeared to simper, and Blaine turned away--he didn’t need to see that.

“Multipass,” Kurt murmured, taking his new ID from Blaine’s hands, looking over it with wonder. Blaine smiled, and then noticed Sam still waiting and cleared his throat.

“Sam, you need to get to the temple,” he instructed. “Set everything up--wait for us there. We may need to make a quick entry; there’s no telling how long this will take and we’re running out of time.”

“You keeping the key on you?”

“No,” Blaine said, pulling the chain from around his neck and passing it over, the key dangling into Sam’s accepting hand. “You’re in charge of this now. It’s too dangerous for me to keep where we’re going. Make sure it stays safe, Sam. We’ll need it soon.”

“I’ll guard it with my life,” Sam vowed solemnly, and Blaine grinned at him, accepting his parting hug.

“I know you will.”

“Okay. I’ll--I’m gonna go. You two...have fun.”

Sam wiggled his eyebrows in a way that was probably supposed to be suggestive and took off, leaving Blaine and Kurt alone with their multipasses in hand, the tickets in Blaine’s pocket. He glanced over at the bar--Sam’s glass had been refilled by the robot bartender; Blaine sighed and grabbed it up, tossing back the drink and swallowing heavily, past the burn.

“Okay,” he said, and Kurt looked up at him and nodded, a questioning smile on his face. “Let’s...go on vacation.”

 

\---

 

“Multipass.”

The attendant at the ticket booth looked up and between them, and Blaine offered her his most charming smile.

“Hi,” he said, sliding his multipass into the reader with one hand and handing the tickets over with the other. “I’m Noah Puckerman, I’m--”

The attendant’s eyes widened, and she gave him a bright grin.

“Mr. Puckerman, welcome, and congratulations on winning the contest!” she said, her accent lilting pleasantly. “You’re going to have a wonderful trip, I guarantee.”

“Kurt Puckerman, multipass,” Kurt repeated, holding it up sharply; Blaine took it from his hand gently and offered it for scanning.

“My husband,” Blaine explained, and Kurt just stood there, no big deal, _oh get over it Blaine_ \-- “My brand new husband. You know how it is, it’s our first time going away together, right honey?” _Shut the hell up, Blaine_ \--

“Newlyweds, congratulations,” the attendant said with just a bit of insincerity. “Well, Nyada Paradise is full of the most romantic views and scenery, and you’ll be treated to the best five-star food in the galaxy, candlelit dinners and romantic music. You are a lucky man, Mr. Puckerman, all that atmosphere to _share_ \--”

And as she leaned over and gave Blaine a flirty smile, Kurt snatched his multipass from her hand and slipped into his pocket, grinning, apparently copying the attendant’s facial expression. Honestly, he looked mocking and fierce, and the attendant’s face locked up just a little bit, oh _gods_ \--

“Okay, so we’ll be going then,” Blaine babbled quickly, taking Kurt’s arm. “Come on, sweetie, we don’t want to miss our flight!”

He let out a mortifyingly awkward laugh and steered Kurt away, toward the boarding gate for their ship. Puck was nowhere to be seen, presumably already on the ship and doing unspeakable things to secure a position there. As they approached, the new attendant grinned and clapped.

“Mr. Puckerman, oh! Come on, we really need you right now!”

Blaine suddenly found himself ushered along, practically pushed up the ramp into the ship and down a hallway as Kurt was guided a different way. Blaine looked back and tried to protest, but the attendant was babbling and hauling him along.

“ _Unique Adams_ is here, she is doing a broadcast, you have to be on it, she has _demanded_ you--” Blaine lost the train of her babbling here as she lowered her voice, still ahead of him, until they burst through some double doors and he picked up the trail again. “It is a great honor to be on her talk show, she is _so_ incredible.”

“I’m--sure she’s lovely,” Blaine finally managed to say. “But I’m on...vacation, I don’t want my husband to miss me--”

And then, Blaine lost all ability to speak.

Straight down the hall, a woman started strutting toward him, her voluptuous body clad all in skin-tight leopard print, dress and gloves and shoes, a huge microphone on some kind of _staff_ in her hands, the same print as her dress. Her hair was a short bob around her face, framing mischievous eyes and a confident smirk, and she appeared to have no trouble balancing on the very tall heels she was wearing.

Her voice started to echo in a smaller microphone curving down a wire near her face, approaching fast on those spiky heels, several people Blaine immediately thought of as _minions_ jogging to keep up.

“Noah _Puckerman_ ,” she said. “The _winner_ of the Gemini Contest. And this boy is _hot_ like _fire_ , Unique is _melting_ , ladies and gentlemen, the boy is hotter than _hot_ , he is _mmmmm, hot!_ ”

She trailed a finger down Blaine’s cheek as she said it, striding right past him as she went, her voice crooning right along with a background of sexual noises that Blaine couldn’t figure out the origin of. But she didn’t seem concerned--she simply continued down the hallway, past people who were apparently her fans; men and women alike writhed and squealed and clapped as she whisked by, grabbing a marker from the hand of one of her posse and simply dragging it across the fans’ proffered papers and photos for autographs. Blaine continued to be shunted along behind her.

“We are _all_ ready for fire tonight, aren’t we ladies and gentlemen?” she continued. “We’re ready for coals and gasoline and sparks and _fire_ , we want things _hot_ , and Unique knows Mister Puckerman here can _provide_ it, ooooh yes--”

She threw her head back and winked at Blaine scurrying along, smile sensual for only a brief moment before she continued on her way.

“Now there are fifteen million of my scorching listeners out there, and they want some _fuel_ _for their heat_ \--” She sang the last four words in a voice like fireworks before stopping and turning to Blaine. “--so _pop_ it, Puckerman.”

She swung her microphone around, ending up with it right in Blaine’s face, and he stared at it terrified for a long moment.

What in the hell did she want him to say?

“Um...hi.”

She threw him the tiniest look before spinning around, singing in a powerful voice, “ _Unbelievable!_ ”

They all pushed on, following Unique as she strolled through the halls of the ship with no apparent aim, passing attendants, a pilot, and two legs tangled and dangling out from behind a curtain, one ending in a blue pump, the other in a heavy boot that Blaine recognized as belonging to Puck, which was twitching.

_Oh, gods, don’t let me have to hear that--_

“We are going to be _ash_ before the night is over, listeners,” Unique cried. “Puck-man is going to keep us _burning_ for more. Trust in our Gemini Winner, he is a _volcano._ ”

She plucked an attendant from the side, a skinny boy with freckles across his face, and pulled him in close to her by his shirt, murmuring something low and quick, and Blaine could hear a lot of things he wasn’t sure he was supposed to be hearing from her microphone.

“You know the feeling of desire, I _want_ you to feel it--”

The poor attendant looked like he was about to wriggle to the floor and become a breathless puddle. Unique smirked, shoved him back, and spun to Blaine again.

“And how do _you_ feel, Mister Puckerman?” she asked, and Blaine wished he’d paid closer attention. “What are _you_ feeling about the _service_ here?”

The mic was in his face again, and oh god, he panicked, what on earth would _Puck_ say in this situation? Blaine had never had to speak to this big of an audience, at least in _number_ \--he _did_ speak to the president of the whole planet once, of course, but that hadn't been recorded--

“N-nothing, really.”

There were boos, and Blaine flushed, leaning back away from the glare Unique immediately sent his way.

“And he _continues_ to burn, but this time we need some _ice_ ,” Unique cooed. “But don’t you worry, he is in Unique’s tender loving care, what is a frog today will tomorrow be a _prince_ \--of Nyada Paradise!”

She draped herself over another attendant, a woman this time, who smiled at her like she couldn’t believe it.

“Nyada Paradise! A palace of riches and wonders and drinks and merry--very, _very_ merry--”

The attendant blushed bright red and stared at Unique’s mouth as it curled around her sign-off.

“And that’s what we’ve got for _you_ , baby, the _sexiest_ radio in the galaxy, five to seven every day, so ready yourselves, listeners, because tomorrow Unique is _live_ and we will be going _all--night--long--_ ”

The attendant fainted. Unique whirled to Blaine, shifting her smaller mic away from her mouth.

“How was it?”

The sycophants all fawned over themselves to tell her how amazing she was, but she waved them away imperiously and raised an eyebrow at Blaine.

“You. How did _you_ think that went, cutie?”

“Uh--”

“ _Bad_ ,” she offered. “It was _bad_. What _was_ that? You need to work on your _energy_ , boy. Unique has a _show_ to run here, and you better get your act together for next time.”

“N-next--”

“Tomorrow,” she said, pronouncing every syllable crisply. “Please try to have more than a two word vocabulary, you hear me?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That’s better.” She smiled brightly, and Blaine found himself smiling back for only a moment before an announcement dinged overhead and he was taken by the arm by an attendant.

“ _We are now turning on the sleep regulators to assure the comfort of your flight. Please enter your cubicles and relax, we will be ascending shortly._ ”

“Your cube is right here, Mr. Puckerman,” the attendant said, opening a small door midway up a wall with several doors three high and pointing inside. “Your husband is waiting for you.”

Blaine grabbed the bar at the top of the doorway and jumped up, swinging himself inside. It was a small space, but enough--the bottom padded softly so he could sleep, the space vaguely like a coffin, a human cubby hole--except it was a double, and Kurt was laying on his stomach next to Blaine, smiling over at him as he settled onto his own stomach.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” Kurt said quietly. He flicked his eyes to the screen between their cubby doors. “I learn more English.”

“Did you?”

Kurt grinned and nodded, proud of himself, and Blaine chuckled.

“That’s amazing, Kurt.”

Blaine sighed and glanced around the tiny space.

“It’s too bad we’re not actually on vacation, huh? We could just...relax. Talk.”

“Talk now,” Kurt suggested. “Before you sleep.”

Blaine glanced at the digital clock on the console of the wall between their doors, and noticed a countdown to take off--three minutes, about.

And he had nothing he could think to ask that wasn’t about the mission. Everything else felt--distant, inappropriate. As much as Blaine wanted to just get to know him, he wasn't sure _how_ , now that they were actually on their way--

“Um...so...how much did you know about us?” Blaine found himself asking, turning on his side to face Kurt. “I mean...before you were--in this body.”

“Before I form?”

“Yes.”

“Mmm. Nothing since last time. Many thousand years. Darkness came, I was made, put in stasis. Darkness hid. Then, you were not many. Great, but...different. Less smoke.”

Blaine laughed.

“Yes, we’ve...advanced quite a bit technologically,” he agreed. “Maybe too much.”

“Maybe not enough yet,” Kurt mused. “Daltonians far beyond--no smoke.”

“Well, that’s true.”

“They knew much,” Kurt said. “Knew future. They not save you if you not go far.”

Blaine understood what Kurt meant, even though he lacked the vocabulary to express it more than basically. But it only added up part of the way.

“But you--don’t know beyond this,” he said. “If they knew our fate--why not tell you?”

“I know nothing but what I need. Human now. We make own fate. Own decisions.”

“But you knew some things.”

“Yes. Like you. But not more than need.” Kurt looked over at Blaine very seriously, speaking slowly and choosing his words carefully. “Choices are important, Blaine. Even mine. I was given enough for... an opportunity. To choose.”

So they gave him nothing more than a chance to survive, and all else had to be up to him. It seemed an inefficient way to save the planet, but--but Blaine knew the final element had to come from Kurt’s human form. Maybe it wouldn’t work if Kurt didn't choose to do it? Maybe it was something that had to happen naturally?

Blaine wished he knew what exactly the fifth element _was_. He had been under the impression it was Kurt himself all along, but--but maybe it was something Kurt represented, instead? Something he had to _do_? Rather than just his presence as conduit for the weapon? And maybe he didn’t know what it was he was supposed to do, or maybe he wasn’t telling Blaine. Either way, Blaine felt completely in the dark.

And then what Kurt said hit him.

“Like me?”

“Yes. You are...known to me. I knew your name, to find you. I...felt you. Alive, somewhere...waiting. Daltonians, when they made me...they know you guide me. You are...written. On my blueprint.”

Blaine felt himself breathing very clearly then, like he was suddenly aware of the very edges of his lungs and his heart. Kurt...Kurt had gone thousands of years _knowing_ about Blaine. _Looking_ for him.

And...honestly, it felt like he had spent forever looking for Kurt as well.

Maybe they didn’t create Kurt for anything but a weapon, but he became human, and Blaine was written _inside_ him somehow--

“I’m--I’m really glad you’re here, Kurt,” Blaine whispered softly. “I’ll do my best to protect you.”

Kurt shifted closer to him, and brushed a stray curl off of Blaine’s forehead.

“I Supreme. _I_ protect _you_ ,” Kurt corrected him. “Sleep.”

Blaine heard the click of a button outside, a faint whirring, and then he blacked out into artificial, but cool and restful, sleep.


	10. Interlude 3

_Dear journal,_

_FAILURE. My soldier on the ground is a worthless NITWIT and it's time to take matters into my own hands. While Karofsky and his tentacled-eared masses provide a DISTRACTION, I will find and take the Stones from right under the Diva's abnormally large nose. Then I can be assured of success. This is the FINAL COUNTDOWN, and it will be quite literally for that hotel when I have what I'm coming for._

_...Oh, great, now I have that awful song stuck in my head. I hate the classics._


	11. Chapter 7

Blaine slept. Kurt did not.

Kurt could sense the frequency that was being emitted to keep the humans unconscious, but he didn’t feel the least bit drowsy at all. The chamber in which he lay was quite comfortable, though, and having Blaine to look at was no hardship.

Blaine was still wearing his heavy black boots, and they didn’t look comfortable for sleeping at all. Kurt reasoned that Blaine surely wouldn’t mind waking up in greater comfort, so he wiggled further into the cubby, and slowly and carefully unlaced one boot and then the other. Blaine’s socked feet wiggled slightly once the boots were off, and Kurt couldn’t help the fond chuckle that it inspired.

Kurt wiggled own his toes and decided that even if he wasn’t going to sleep, he may as well make himself comfortable too. He unlaced his boots and pulled them off, placing them beside Blaine’s and smiling at the result. There was something appealing in seeing his boots tucked into the corner beside Blaine’s smaller ones, something so sweet and casual and enduring about it , even if Kurt couldn’t put his finger on exactly what it was that he was reacting to.

Kurt spared one more glance at the boots, and then settled onto his side to watch Blaine.

Now that he wasn’t dressed in robes, Kurt could see that Blaine’s body was small; lean and solid and compact and slightly plump in the most surprising and wonderful places. It wasn’t the first time Kurt had noticed, but it was very different looking at Blaine like this. When there were no strange buildings or strange, smoky airships or strange human concepts to distract him. When he was not covered by lumpy sackcloth. When he was lying close enough to see every one of Blaine’s perfect black eyelashes.

Blaine’s eyelashes were incredibly long, and they fanned out across his golden-olive skin beautifully. Kurt tried to count the lashes, but they were far too thick and numerous, and it wasn’t long before he forgot to even try and count and simply let himself _stare._

Blaine was beautiful.

Kurt wondered if he were somehow designed to feel that way, to trust Blaine and admire his appearance and feel safe when they were close together. Blaine was, after all, etched into Kurt’s very essence. It was logical that he would be predisposed to react to him in a positive way.

But.

But this seemed to be more than that.

There was something... _more_ about Blaine, something soft and kind and utterly compelling. Even if Kurt hadn’t essentially been programmed to find him, even if their destinies were not intertwined in this particular way, Kurt felt a strange sense of absolute certainty that he would feel things for Blaine regardless.

“I keep you safe,” Kurt whispered, reaching out to touch the planes of Blaine’s sleeping face, but stopping himself just short of actual contact. Blaine was asleep, after all. Removing his boots was one thing, but to touch his bare skin...Kurt simply couldn’t do it. He didn’t have Blaine’s permission.

So instead Kurt traced his fingers over Blaine’s features without actually touching him, a small cushion of air between Kurt’s searching fingertips and Blaine’s smooth skin. Over the thin, lovely skin of his eyelids, etched with fine blue veins, down his nose, somehow soft and prominent at the same time, across his high cheekbones and slightly chubby cheeks and chin. Without touching, Kurt could still tell that a bit of roughness was gathering where a beard might grow, and he wondered if Blaine ever did let it grow, or if he always kept his face smooth and bare.

His lips--

Kurt took in a deep, sharp breath as his fingertips ghosted over Blaine’s lightly parted lips, _aching_ to touch the rosy-pink skin, the perfect cupid’s bow. Blaine’s warm, moist breath made Kurt’s fingers tingle, and he drew in a deep, shaking breath and pulled his hand back.

Blaine was so vulnerable in sleep, and Kurt felt his heart surge at the protectiveness he felt to see him in such a state. The urge to hold Blaine was suddenly so overwhelming that Kurt had to close his eyes.

Which, of course, only made everything worse.

Because while _looking_ at Blaine had taken up his whole attention, _thinking_ about Blaine lead to unbidden images of Blaine’s naked skin, of what his gorgeously rounded backside would look like without clothing to contain it, of what his-

Kurt inhaled sharply, his eyes flying open as thoughts of Blaine suddenly and shockingly merged with the images of naked men pleasuring each other that Kurt had seen while exploring Blaine’s computer.

Ah. Perhaps there were reasons for human notions of modesty after all.

Kurt turned his face back toward Blaine, unable to look anywhere else for long, and wondered what it would feel like to plant small kisses all over Blaine’s skin until he awoke, to peel away the layers of clothing and see what Blaine would do if Kurt pinched _here_ and tickled _there_ and licked _this_ and bit down on…

Kurt felt his cheeks gather heat. Why was he thinking of _biting_ Blaine? And why was it that he could not seem to stop himself from squirming where he lay, grinding his hardness into the plush surface beneath him? He knew that he enjoyed looking at the bodies of men; he had also come across some videos buried in a folder labeled ‘Sam’ that contained men with women and women with women, and while they had been interesting (and, in more than one instance, beautiful), they hadn’t affected Kurt in the way that seeing men together most _definitely_ had. The videos with women had not made Kurt squeeze at his cock, moving and stroking until his body showed him what to do, guided him into his own pleasure as he watched human strangers fitting their masculine bodies together in ways that stole his very breath away. But this...this was more than that. It wasn’t just that he wanted to touch Blaine (though the thought made him squirm even more), it was that he wanted...closeness. He wanted their bodies to be as close as possible so that…

So that _what?_ Kurt risked closing his eyes again, breathing in a deep sigh, and turned onto his back so that he could think better without the constant pressure against his crotch.

He wanted….he didn’t know what he wanted, exactly. He wanted Blaine, and it was something like the relentless drive to find him that had brought him to Blaine in the first place, but there was no anxiety in it. No fear. He didn’t understand it, but it didn’t scare him either. The feeling was safe. It felt warm and true. It was simple affection, and it was far, far more complicated than that.

Kurt sighed, imagined Blaine’s face screwed up in pleasure, plush lips parted around ragged breaths and tiny moans. Imagined him blinking his eyes open, drowsy with pleasure, after reaching completion. Imagined holding him close, skin to skin. Imagined kissing him, and kissing him again, and never, ever stopping.

Kurt turned his head to look at Blaine again, and couldn’t help himself from smiling, emotions swelling and pushing the inner boundaries of his heart. Blaine was...precious. Uncorrupted. Perfect. Kurt _ached_ to kiss his lips.

But Kurt could not take what was not offered. Blaine had given up much for the life that he lead, had given up many of the material possessions that so many humans clung to with such ferocity. He had given up true companionship as well, it seemed, and Kurt could not know that it hadn’t been by choice until he had to chance to _ask_. Blaine cared for Kurt, that much was clear, but it didn’t mean that Blaine wanted to kiss him. Or ever would.

Kurt settled onto his side, not bored of simply watching Blaine sleep. Watching was enough; simply being in Blaine’s presence gave Kurt a greater sense of satisfaction than anything he had known, even if it didn’t soothe the throbbing between his legs.

Time was difficult to judge in their quiet little pod as they sped through the heavens, even with Kurt's inherent sense of timekeeping.  But it seemed as if several hours had passed when Kurt felt the ship jolt and jerk, a flight attendant’s face appearing in the window into their pod soon after. She seemed surprised when Kurt smiled and waved at her, the door lifting and allowing her to lean in.

“Well you’re certainly up early, Mr. Puckerman. We’ve landed, but your husband may be difficult to wake for the next thirty minutes, so if you’d like to wait-”

Kurt shook his head, pulling his boots back on. “I let Blaine sleep. There is someone I must find.”

“All right, sir. Shall I tell him to meet you in your room?”

“Yes. Thank you,” Kurt replied. The woman held her hand out a bit awkwardly, as if expecting something, but did not make eye contact with Kurt. Kurt was a puzzled, but the gesture seemed straightforward enough, though strange for a parting as opposed to a greeting. Kurt supposed he still had much to learn about human cultures. Shrugging slightly, he reached out and shook her hand vigorously.

He barely registered the annoyance and confusion in her eyes as he released her hand and walked toward the exit, the scents and sounds of Nyada Paradise summoning him.

Kurt walked out onto the boarding dock, bright sunshine and warm air with a cool, gentle breeze wrapping around his skin. The cruise ship itself was nothing short of _enormous,_ hovering perhaps two hundred feet above an endless expanse of crystal-blue sparkling water. Kurt breathed deep, allowing himself a moment to enjoy the sweet, clean air and sun on his face. It reminded him almost painfully of Dalton.

Squaring his shoulders, Kurt strode toward the large glass doors that had been thrown open, leading to the interior of the cruise ship. Greeters stood poised with necklaces made of flowers , and though Kurt was among the first to board, he knew the crowds would soon make his task far more difficult. The ship was large and time was tight, after all, and Kurt had a Diva to find.


	12. Chapter 8

Waking from the ship’s regulated sleep was about as abrupt as falling into it, and there was no memory in between. One moment, Blaine was talking to Kurt, receiving his assurances of protection, and the next he was opening his eyes to an empty compartment. Kurt was nowhere he could see.

He slid out and looked around, but in the chaos of arrival at Nyada Paradise, he couldn’t see much of anything. But Kurt was right--he was a Supreme Being. Human, but with the genetic codes to absorb everything he’d need to not only survive, but thrive. He’d know how to take care of himself, how to take in the information he’d see in the new experiences around him.

Blaine just wished he could be there for it. As much as he knew that Kurt could handle himself, he just...wanted to be beside him. To protect him, even if he didn’t need protection. Even if Kurt could do a better job himself. Blaine still wanted to do it.

Falling in love with a Supreme being was a confusing experience, to say the least.

He ended up following the push of the crowd off the ship and into the lobby of the massive hotel ship that was Nyada Paradise, that would circle the beautiful planet during their stay, offering them hundreds of beautiful vistas along the way. As he reached the greeters, they hung garlands of flowers around his neck and his brow, practically covering him in them. He laughed--he could have received worse treatment as the honored guest of the weekend. And...maybe he could enjoy this. These little moments, before the inevitable chaos of what was to come.

But where was Kurt? He deserved these moments, too. And...Blaine wanted to share them. With him.

“Mister Puckerman,” one woman called. A hotel attendant, by the look of her. “Let me show you to your room.”

She pulled him from the crowd and over to a set of elevators. He took a deep breath, feeling less crushed by the sheer number of people.

“Have you checked in my husband yet?” he asked, and she blinked. “We got separated in the rush.”

“No, sir. But we can order an announcement to be made for him to meet you in your room--”

But Kurt could be doing something important. He knew where the Diva was, right? Presumably he would be going there. Stupid, stupid Blaine, not even considering that.

“No, that’s--that’s not necessary,” Blaine assured as she entered the elevator and picked up the call receiver inside. “No. I’m sure he’ll find the room. He probably just got distracted by the scenery.”

“Very well.”

The ride up went in awkward silence, until they reached what was apparently the top deck.

“Here we are,” she said, leading him down a short hallway to a huge set of double doors. “You’re in our Master Suite, Mister Puckerman--one of only five on the ship! Only our most esteemed guests get to stay in one of these. You’ll have absolute privacy--”

She opened the doors, and a huge, beautiful bedroom was revealed, the walls completely transparent, showing the absolute majesty that made up the surroundings about Nyada Paradise.

“--and the best views.”

Blaine walked over to the bed and plopped down on the end, hardly able to breathe. He’d--he’d never seen anything like this. In all his years, he’d lived on Earth, among its towers and smog. But out the window, all he could see were cobalt waters, broken by reddish mountains that cut into the bright, clear sky. And it had _clouds_ \--Blaine had never really seen clouds. Not past the smog.

When this was all done, he was bringing Kurt back here. If he had to work an entire lifetime just to save for it, he would. Kurt deserved to see this, too, once his mission was over.

“The Diva Racheberi is arriving shortly,” the attendant continued, offering him an understanding smile. “You have front row seats to her performance--right next to _Unique_ , you lucky man. I don’t know which I’m more envious about.”

Blaine chuckled.

“Um--I hate to ask this, but...I don’t know if I have...um...proper attire--”

The attendant pushed a section of the wall near the door, and a rack of tuxedos flew out.

“We have a full stock of anything you might need, Mister Puckerman,” she said. “All you have to do is ask. Anything for our Gemini Winner!”

Blaine took a deep breath.

“Just...one more thing, then.” He coughed. Might as well take advantage of the services, even if they never got to really use them. “Um...could you send up a bottle of your best champagne? For...for when my husband arrives. Probably after the performance.”

The attendant grinned.

“I’ll make sure they put it on ice.”

“No need! I am here.”

The attendant had left the door open, and it slammed against the wall as Puck strode in.

“Hi honey,” Puck said. “Miss me?”

“Uh--”

“Hey there,” Puck continued, smirking at the attendant. “How are you? Have a good flight?”

“Um, darling,” Blaine blurted. “We--have to get ready for the performance tonight.”

He sounded absolutely panicked. He _was_ absolutely panicked. What the hell was Puck doing?

“Yeah, that sounds good,” Puck said, plopping himself onto the bed and bouncing. “Hey darlin’, how about you send up some grub? Chef’s speciality--”

“ _What are you doing_ ,” Blaine hissed, but Puck ignored him as the attendant nodded and rushed out. He tilted and stared, and Blaine had a feeling he was checking out her ass. He punched Puck in the shoulder. “What the hell?”

“What? I was covering for you,” Puck said. “I saw Kurt heading off to the other side of the ship, he looked fine, so get your panties out of their bunch and relax. We’re supposed to go see this Diva, right?”

“Well, I guess--but Kurt was supposed to--”

“You really gonna let him do that by himself?” Puck scoffed. “Fuck that. Let’s get into our monkey suits and head off, the Diva’s supposed to be here in like...ten minutes.”

He strode over to the tuxes and started rifling through them. Blaine stared until Puck sighed and turned around.

“You comin’, lover boy? We ain’t got all day, and I wanna see if the Diva's tits look as good as they do in her picture.”

He tossed Blaine a tux, and Blaine sighed. Might as well just go with it. That’s all he’d been doing up to this point, anyway

 

\---

 

"There he is."

Kurt waited by a corner, casually leaning against the wall next to it, out of sight from the opposite end of the hall. At Puck's call, he looked up, instantly wide-eyed and frantic as he launched off the wall and grabbed both Puck and Blaine

"Not thinking," Kurt hissed, releasing them against the wall and slapping them both upside their heads. "Hide. No noise."

"Ow, geez," Puck said, wincing. "You got a helluva grip."

"Shut up," Kurt snapped, and shoved them further past the corner he'd been hiding behind. He took up his spot again and held a finger up to his lips, and that's when they heard steps coming down the hall.

"W-welcome to the master suite, Diva," a nervous voice stammered. "Y-you are...uh. Welcome to the most--most luxurious...I...wow, tall."

There was silence, and then a faint whisper, like a breeze through silk. Moments later, a small girl in thick spectacles appeared at the corner, peeking behind it casually.

"The Diva Racheberi sends her greetings," she whispered in a sibilant voice. "She has what you are seeking, and will meet you in her room after the show."

She whirled away, and then the sounds of shuffling and chatting and the snap of a door shutting rang out through the hall in quick succession. Kurt turned and nodded.

"Clear," he said. "I will wait for Diva. You, go to the show."

"All right." Puck clapped a heavy hand on Blaine's shoulder. "You think that Unique chick will be there too? I'd like to get to know her show, if you know what I mean."

"Kurt," Blaine said, stepping past Puck and taking one of Kurt's hands. "Are you going to be okay by yourself? I can stay."

"No." Kurt shook his head and smiled. "I will stay. You go. Have...fun."

Blaine blinked and felt a strong pull in his chest. He turned to Puck. "Can you give us a moment?"

"Sure thing," Puck said. "I'll be back that'a way."

"Kurt," Blaine said again, once Puck was gone, taking both of Kurt's hands. His heart hammered as Kurt looked down at their hands joined between them. "Once this is over...when the Stones have been replaced, and we've...finished the Darkness...I want to take you someplace."

"Where?" Kurt asked warily, looking up sharply. "More trouble?"

"No, no. That's--that's the point. No trouble. I want _you_ to have some fun. We'll...we'll show you what that's like, okay? Can I show you?"

Kurt's eyes face crumpled just a little bit, and he nodded.

"Yes," he said. "Show me. After."

He leaned forward and kissed Blaine's forehead, just a gentle peck, and pulled back smiling. Blaine returned it with the most ridiculous grin to ever cross his face.

"Okay," he said. "Then I'll see you after the show, and we'll go, and then...and then we'll have fun."

Kurt nodded. "Okay."


	13. Interlude 4

_Dear journal,_

_The time has come. The pieces are all in place._

_It’s time to blow up the board._


	14. Chapter 9

_ Fun.  _ When this was over, Blaine was going to take Kurt do do something fun. It was a strange idea; fun as a plan and a purpose. It wasn’t that Kurt had never had fun before--Blaine’s food-making machine had been fun, and so had learning about humans (well, not all of that was fun, and some of it was perhaps  _ too  _ fun). But...Kurt wasn’t built for fun. He was built to save worlds, to protect the humans until they had reached the ability to truly protect themselves. And he and Blaine, they were colleagues. But Blaine wanted to spend time with Kurt having fun. After the darkness was defeated, after Blaine was no longer  _ required  _ to serve Kurt, he wanted to spend time with Kurt. He wanted to  _ enjoy  _ time with Kurt. 

Kurt chewed his lip, remembering the bright smile on Blaine’s face before he had left the hall. A smile that had been for Kurt and no one else. He hoped that when the battle was over, he would have cause to see that smile again.

Kurt was pulled from his reverie by the sound of heavy, graceless boots clomping toward the Diva’s bedroom door and loud, guttural speech.

_ Mangalores. _

  
\---

 

“ \--and  _ here  _ we are with the Gemini Winner, Mister  _ Noah Puckerman  _ and his  _ hunky  _ husband, mmmm what a pair they make, and we are  _ ready _ for the Diva’s performance, which starts-- _ say it for me, baby _ .”

Unique had excellent timing, Blaine had to admit that. He leaned over to her microphone just as the lights started to dim.

“Now?”

“ Stay tuned, listeners,” Unique ended in a whisper. “You’re getting the performance  _ live _ .”

Blaine smiled at her, and she shook her head and pursed her lips at him before turning back up front. Oh. Well. He tried.

“Jesus, dude, have some confidence,” Puck whispered, and elbowed Blaine in the side.

“Ow!” Blaine glared. “I wasn’t totally sure.”

He would’ve explained, but the curtains drew open, and there she stood.

Nearly seven feet tall. Bright blue skin, a dress that seemed to fuse with her skin. Beautiful--absolutely stunning. She opened her mouth, and as the music rose behind her, her voice flowed from her mouth and rang through the theater. Melancholy, sweet and dark, in a language he didn’t have to understand. No words were necessary. All the sorrow of the world was in her voice, and Blaine could feel it.

Because Blaine knew. Blaine knew what the sorrow of the world was. Loneliness, pain, loss. On every scale, he knew these things. He knew his own, the individual, and he knew that every person alive, no matter their species or race or gender, knew this pain. But as well as knowing their own, there were different levels of pain, from couple to family to village to country to whole planets, pain shared and pain administered among these individuals and groups, causing it between and inside themselves. But then, a universal pain, the one so few knew was coming, the one Blaine was trying to help Kurt stop. The ultimate pain--the pain of pure and utter destruction, death and suffering on an infinite scale. And the Diva’s voice expressed all of it, and Blaine knew exactly what she meant.

Gods, if only Kurt could hear this.

He wiped his eyes as discreetly as he could. He didn’t want Puck to make fun of him--but when he glanced over, Puck was sniffling and holding his jaw tight, a single tear falling down his cheek in a very manly way. On his other side, Unique held a fabulous black velvet handkerchief with red roses that matched her dress to her nose, trying to keep quiet around her microphones that picked up the performance.

Blaine wasn’t alone. The Diva was uniting them with her voice, reminding them that they  _ all _ felt this pain.

But then her voice morphed, and Blaine knew that he was about to be shown another facet of himself that he shared with everyone he was trying to save--another reason to save them all. They were all the same, in their hearts.

Another thing he wished Kurt could hear. Kurt would learn  _ so much _ here. He would know why it was worth it.

 

\---

 

Kurt drew a deep breath and searched the room desperately in the few precious seconds that he had before the Mangalores reached the door. The Stones--where would Racheberi had left the stones? And if the Mangalores found them-

He didn’t have time to look. He would have to resort to his second option.

Kurt allowed his body to push past its most basic human limits and settle into the physicality it was truly capable of. He chanced a quick full-body stretch before leaping to the ceiling and throwing his arms and legs out, spread-eagle, catching hold of the edges where the ceiling gave way to a massive skylight window.

The Mangalores burst into the room quite literally, blasting the door off its hinges and striding in as if they owned the place. Of course, in their minds they owned  _ every  _ place.

There were six of them; all in their human forms when they entered, disguised as Federation soldiers, though some shifted back to their natural appearance as they began ransacking the room greedily, whooping loudly and making no secret of the joy they took in destroying beautiful and delicate things. Kurt’s heart lurched as they threw jewelry and shoes over their shoulders, ripped apart gorgeous dresses for fun. All for  _ fun. _

“Oy!” One of the Mangalores shouted to the largest one in the room, the one that seemed to quite clearly lead this charge. The smaller Mangalore pulled a gleaming golden box from a smashed-open suitcase and held it up. “This might be what we’re looking for,” he said in English.

“Well, open the damn thing!” the leader bellowed, as the other Mangalore struggled with the complex lock on the front of the box.

When the leader pointed his gun at the box, ready to blast it open, Kurt knew that it was time. He pushed off from his footholds on the ceiling, swinging sharply before releasing his grip, giving him just the right trajectory to slam into the leader’s chest, feet-first, sending him flying as his gun went off wildly, firing several shots into the air as it sailed from his grip. One of the shots hit the skylight, and Kurt bolted for the edge of the room, covering his head as glass rained down.

Kurt took advantage of the momentary confusion to run over to the Mangalore with the box in his hands, and wrench it free. He bolted toward the door, but found himself blocked by the four remaining Mangalores, the leader already standing back up and dusting himself off, a look of pure bloodlust in his eyes as he regarded Kurt. The look seemed to take on another dimension as he raked his eyes up and down Kurt’s body, and even though Kurt didn’t understand what it was, it made the fine hairs stand up on the back of his neck.

“Kill him if you have to,” the leader said gruffly, “but if you can, just fuck him up and keep him alive. I want some time with him before we finish him off.”

The other Mangalores chortled, and Kurt had never before heard laughter sound so blatantly mean-spirited.

“Yessir, Karofsky,” one of them said, and lunged for Kurt.

And then Kurt was not really Kurt at all. He was the fifth element. He was the Supreme Being. He was a perfectly built physical body with the wisdom and skill of a million disciplines humming through his blood.

He was perfect. And these men had left him no choice.

He reached out a hand for the Mangalore that advanced on him, his movements so fast that the creatures around him almost seemed to be moving in slow motion. He dug his fingers in at exactly the right point, breaking the Mangalore’s neck, then lifting the heavy body as it crumpled and throwing it heavily at two others who were about to attack.

Kurt ducked just in time to avoid several zinging bullets, noticing that the leader--Karofsky--now had the golden box in his hands and was advancing toward the door. Focusing his energy, he threw himself backward into a series of backflips, avoiding every bullet, until he stood before Karofsky, reaching his leg to kick again.

But he had underestimated the Mangalore leader, who grabbed Kurt by the foot and yanked before a kick could land, attempting to throw off his balance. Instead, Kurt moved with the twist, managing to wrench a gun free from one of the other Mangalores before he even regained his footing.

Kurt landed awkwardly, but managed two perfect shots, two more Mangalores falling lifelessly to the ground. He threw the gun down as he flipped through the air once again to avoid a barrage of bullets. Guns had never been his favorite, he much preferred weapons such as-

Such as  _ sai swords.  _ Such as the very pair of sai swords that lay amongst the Diva’s discarded rubble, clearly antiques. Probably in need of sharpening. But definitely something Kurt could work with.

Kurt dove for the swords, catching them in his hands before rolling into a hands-free somersault, landing in a crouched position. He continued to move to avoid the bullets, keeping his eyes on the leader the entire time. He needed that box.

“ What are you, a fucking android?” one of the Mangalore henchmen grunted, and it was odd to Kurt that the words actually hurt. Because he  _ wasn’t  _ a life form like they were, not in the traditional sense, there wasn’t anyone else like him in the universe. He had been programmed much like an android, he supposed, but he was alive. And his entire life, his entire  _ alive-ness  _ was dedicated to saving not only humans, but peoples. All peoples. Even these creatures before him. He would kill them in order to save their species. It was madness, and Kurt couldn’t understand, but it wasn’t for him to understand. It was just for him to carry out.

And for the first time in Kurt’s existence, it almost felt like a burden.

  
  


\---

  
The theater felt like it was thrumming through the Diva’s performance. The backing music had morphed into something sharper, harder, but the Diva’s voice threaded through it like the thread at the end of a needle. The backing music guided her, but she held everything together, weaving up and down and around and through, and Blaine felt like he could hardly breathe. He watched her wide-eyed, on the edge of his seat, as though he were waiting for the opportunity to leap from his seat to applaud.

But the performance wasn’t over yet. The accompaniment was harsher now, almost discordant with the Diva’s voice as it rose and rose to a soaring high note.

No. It  _ was  _ discordant. And Blaine wasn’t entirely sure that was accompaniment.

“Puck,” he said, turning, but Puck was already looking back as the noises grew louder. Staccato, pounding noise, louder and louder--

“That’s gunshots,” Puck hissed.

“Are you sure--”

“I know gunshots, friend.”

Blaine started to rise, he  _ had  _ to get the Diva off the stage, stop the performance, get her to  _ safety _ , get everyone to safety if he could.

“Get down--”

But Puck hit him with a shoulder, sending him down to the ground just as the doors burst open and hell broke loose.

 

\---

 

“Give me box,” Kurt said, still crouched with the swords held criss-crossed in front of his body. “Give me box or you all die. Your planet and your families and all. Everything. Please.”

The leader barked out a nasty laugh. The sneer on his human-morphed face made him just as ugly to Kurt as it would be in its usual grotesque form. “You’re feeling pretty self-important, aren’t you? Well, we’ve got our orders too, pretty boy, and just because you’ve managed to kill off the dead weight in our crew doesn’t mean-”

Before Karofsky could finish, Kurt leapt to his feet, unfolding his arms quickly and releasing both swords, each one lodging itself in the throat of one of the remaining henchmen, who promptly collapsed lifelessly to the floor.

Karofsky raised his eyebrows, but still looked unimpressed. “What I was going to say,” he continued gruffly, placing the box on the floor and advancing toward Kurt, “is that you can’t stop us. We have more power behind us than you could understand, little boy, and I’ve cleaned my teeth with bigger weapons than you.”

“You’ve cleaned your teeth?” Kurt couldn’t help but ask. What little he’d witnessed of this creature’s oral hygiene made the statement suspicious at best.

The creature laughed again, even meaner than before. “Don’t mind if I do,” he said, taking advantage of Kurt’s eyes laser-focused on the box to grasp him around the waist and yank him close, crushing Kurt’s mouth against his own.

Kurt froze.

Everything he’d ever learned, everything his body knew how to do without his conscious mind’s interference--all of it just...stopped. The only thing he could latch onto at all was  _ no. No no no no no no no….. _

He tried to say it, but his words were muffled by Karofsky’s damp lips, slimy tongue, horrific breath. he tried to push him away, but his arms and legs were locked up, his strength frozen, and the creature’s hands were beginning to slip lower…

Kurt was overwhelmed with the horrible realization of what Karofsky planned to do. He did not plan to stop, and he did not care that he did not have permission. What he wanted to do to Kurt--it was one of the worst things that Kurt could possibly imagine. He wanted to violate that which was most sacred and private. To take away what little control Kurt had over his own body, his own life. He wanted…

He wanted to destroy.

Karofsky deepened his mouth’s claim on Kurt’s, and began fumbling with the belt of Kurt’s pants. And that was when the world unfroze. Because this...this simply  _ could not happen. _

Kurt managed to find his strength, and though his arms shook, he was able to use them to finally push Karofsky away. Kurt stepped back. “Ecto gamut,” he whispered, voice trembling.

Karofsky snorted. “I don’t know what the fuck that’s supposed to mean, but don’t go pretending you didn’t like that. I’ve seen how strong you are, and if you’d  _ really  _ wanted me to stop-”

Kurt sighed, looked down at his hands, and then back up at Karofsky, who was grinning triumphantly, the obvious joy he took in Kurt’s distress making something heavy settle in Kurt’s heart. He stepped forward, reached out, and snapped Karofsky’s neck.

There was no satisfaction in it.

It was simply impossible for things to end in any other way, so Kurt had done it. But there were millions of others like Karofsky in the universe, millions of others with hard eyes and no respect for the personal and the sacred. Millions who took pleasure in destroying things. Including the spirits of their fellow beings.

Kurt stepped over Karofsky’s corpse, and crouched down to examine the box. The lock was complex, with no combination or place for a key. Instead there was a smooth, round, indented area, and Kurt knew exactly what to do. He pressed his thumb into the indent, and the box immediately clicked open.

Inside the box, laid on rich purple velvet, was only a small piece of paper, written in the Divine tongue.

“ _While the Diva lives, the Stones remain safe. When hope dies, the world dies with it.”_

It had clearly been written by Racheberi, designed to convey a message of hope, to encourage Kurt not to give up.

Kurt sank to the floor amidst the bleeding bodies around him, clutched the paper tightly, and wept.

 

\---

 

Blaine couldn’t hear anything but screams and gunfire. Unique, on the ground next to him, was covering her head and huddling down, staring at him wide-eyed. He looked over at Puck--he was shouting at people to get down, to shut up, but no one was listening. When Blaine leaned up to see what was happening, it was to see chaos, people climbing over chairs, running past each other, and some Mangalores at the back of the theater, descending steadily, shooting everything in sight.

And just as he turned his head, the Diva’s voice died, and in a haze, Blaine saw her fall gracefully to the stage floor, gunned down.

He wrenched himself away from Puck and crawled over. He jumped up long enough to pull the Diva from the stage as carefully as he could, dropping back to the floor with her in his arms, surprisingly light. Puck joined him instantly, helping him bring the Diva back to the cover of the seats.

“Diva,” Blaine gasped, free hand fluttering over her, not knowing where to land, where she was injured--her dress was in tatters, she was bleeding from a wound on her side and possibly more-- “Diva, you’re hurt--”

“Save him,” the Diva said, reaching a hand up to cup Blaine’s cheek. “Take the Stones. And save him. He is far more fragile than he knows.”

“What do you mean?” Blaine asked. “How do I save Kurt?”

“Only you can save him, Blaine,” Racheberi said, coughing, her voice weakening with every labored breath. “Take the Stones.”

“Where are they?”

Racheberi smiled sadly, her delicate hand drifting down to rest on her chest. “The Stones...are in me.”

Beside Blaine, Puck looked the Diva up and down, and then shrugged. “All right. Let’s get ‘em out of her.”

He reached up to the neck of her dress and reached beneath it to her breast. The Diva shrieked and slapped his hand away, sitting up.

“How dare you!” she gasped.

“You said the Stones were in you!” Puck protested, gesturing to her chest. “What the hell was I supposed to do?”

“ They are in my  _ legs _ ,” Racheberi snapped. She pulled her ruined dress aside from the bottom, and Blaine looked down to see wide metal framing. Inside the metal, two in each side, were ancient, carved stones, each one bearing the mark of an Element.

“You--you’re wearing stilts,” Blaine blurted out, seeing tiny feet at the top of the stilts, strapped in tight. Racheberi had the grace to look embarrassed.

“Being tall made me mysterious,” she said. “Anyway, take them. And go, before they kill you. You’re still needed.”

“Will you be okay--”

“ I’m  _ fine _ ,” Racheberi said with a shrug. “My side hurts but I think they just grazed me, they’re not very good shots are they--”

“Gods, let’s get going,” Puck spat, pulling off his jacket and piling the stones in before slinging it up like a sack. The Mangalores were closing in, and they needed to get out. “Your boy’s gonna need these. But how the fuck we’re getting through these lumps--”

“Wait!”

Blaine turned and saw Unique shuffling over on her knees.

“Take me with you,” she panted. “I can’t make it on my own, and I can help you. I know this ship, I can get you out. I can get you wherever you need to go and they’ll never see us.”

“Of course.” Blaine offered her his hand, and then turned to Puck. “Can you keep us safe until we get to Kurt?”

“Are you kidding?” He reaches back, and from some undisclosed location in his clothing, he pulls out a heavy pistol. He cocks it back and nods. “Let’s go get ourselves a Supreme Being.” He grins at Unique. “Lead the way, sweet cheeks.”

 

\---

 

Kurt closed his eyes and took several deep, slow, cleansing breaths. This was no time to let his emotions overwhelm him. He needed to find the stones so he could save the world. So he could save  _ Blaine. _ He tucked the note back into the box and closed it, bringing it over to the vanity and setting it amidst a chaos of smashed objects. He wiped the tear tracks with the back of his hand, straightened his back, and began to search the room for the stones.

It did appear that the Mangalores had done a thorough job of tearing the room apart, but the stones  _ had  _ to be in there somewhere. They were too big for Racheberi to carry with her (Kurt knew how tight her dresses were, that much was obvious from going through her closet), and Kurt doubted that she would have left them in the hands of even her most trusted aide. So  _ where were they? _

Kurt triple-checked the wardrobe, feeling around for a false ceiling or bottom, and caught his reflection in the shattered mirror on the inside of the wardrobe door. at his own red, swollen eyes, blotchy cheeks and puffy lips (from  _ Karofsky’s  _ lips, he noted with a shudder). Kurt raised his hand to fix his hair, but then decided against it with a sigh. There really wasn’t any point, was there? He was just about to move over toward the bed to check underneath it one more time when his eyes went wide and he threw himself to the ground, shielding himself as the entire wardrobe door exploded above him, shards of glass and wood flying through the air, and more than one piece slicing into his flesh.

He quickly recovered, despite the pain and the blood that was now flowing freely from shallow cuts on his cheek, shoulder and thigh. He leapt to his feet to face the woman he had glimpsed in the mirror behind him, an enormous weapon slung over her shoulder. It looked something like a gun, but also something like a small, portable cannon, its barrel disturbingly wide. The woman was also disturbing to look at, for a reason that Kurt couldn’t pinpoint at first. She was a handsome woman, tall and lanky with broad shoulders and short blonde hair, wearing what looked like an exercise outfit.

“So. The ultimate tool of the Daltonians. We meet at last. I’ve got to be honest, I expected something more than a doe-eyed, porcelain-skinned twink with horrid fashion sense. I actually thought you were a credible threat.”

“ You…” Kurt began, swallowing heavily as he realized what it was about her that was so disturbing. Her eyes, while a light shade of blue, were infused with an unmistakable darkness.  _ The  _ Darkness. Her eyes, her soul, her very essence--they were all but  _ drenched  _ in it. Kurt clutched his stomach against a sudden wave of nausea. “You hold the Darkness within you. You...you would see the universe destroyed.”

“ Not the  _ universe,  _ gelfling, just your corner of it. I have been assured a measure of safety and protection.”

Kurt didn’t argue or correct her. She was clearly too far gone to realize that she--like the rest of them--was nothing but a pawn in all this. The Darkness had clearly chosen her because she was well-connected and predisposed to evil, but above all else, she valued self-preservation. And the Darkness had corrupted even  _ that,  _ had convinced her that helping to destroy humanity would somehow be to her benefit.

“ But honestly? I don’t have the time or the patience for chit-chat, Porcelain. You’ve been gumming up the works for far too long, and since no one  _ else  _ seems to be able to capture or kill you, I guess it’s up to me. If you want something done right, do it yourself, am I wrong?”

The weapon in her arms began humming shrilly, and Kurt managed a handspring off the bed in the middle of the room, narrowly avoiding the red-hot metal ball that shot out of the weapon, causing the wall it hit to explode on contact, revealing another (fortunately empty) hotel suite. The power of the blast vibrated outward, and Kurt barely avoided being slammed into an opposite wall from its sheer force.

Kurt crouched on the opposite side of the bed from the woman, curled up small. He could hear her move around the room, and concentrated on staying out of the possible blast range.

“I might consider letting you go if you tell me where the Stones are,” the woman added conversationally. “I’ll find them either way, so this offer really is a bargain. You’d have to be an idiot to turn it down.”

“You wouldn’t let me go,” Kurt spat, crawling around the edge of the bed, a plan slowly coming together in his mind.

The woman laughed. “You got me there, baby face, I guess I wouldn’t. What can I say? Sue Sylvester  _ always  _ gets her man. But you can make it easier on yourself if you tell me. Because if you  _ don’t,  _ I promise you that I’ll make it hurt.”

Kurt leapt to his feet and ran toward the door, narrowly avoiding first one blast and then another. Plaster and dust filled the air as Sue continued to fire, Kurt slamming into the walls and furniture around him with the force of each near-hit, lamps shattering until they had only the moonlight to see by, and finally-- _ finally-- _ Kurt had a window of opportunity. While Sue was straining to figure out where he was, Kurt spotted an air duct in the ceiling, and with what felt like the last of his energy, he jumped up and caught hold, pulling himself up smoothly and silently crawling inside.

Kurt collapsed into the tight space, willing his panting breaths into silence as Sue stalked the room beneath him.

“Oh, you think you’re so clever, don’t you?” She snarled. “You’ve just made it easier for me, that’s all. Nothing easier than shooting a sitting duck.”

And with that Sue resumed firing--some of her shots coming uncomfortably close to where Kurt hid. he clamped his eyes shut, praying that he be allowed to survive. To carry out his mission. To see Blaine again…

When the blasting finally stopped, Kurt became aware of a second voice in the room.

“Commander, we’ve got to get out of here, the president’s about to send in troops--”

“ _ Then we will kill them!”  _ Sue screamed.

“But commander--” the second voice dropped too low for Kurt to hear.

“ Why the hell didn’t you tell me that? Find them. Search them. Tear their fucking bodies open.  _ Go!”  _ Sue yelled in response, but her voice was getting fainter, and it soon became clear that she was leaving with whomever else had come in to the room. Clearly Sue had discovered something that was more important than killing Kurt.

Kurt fought desperately to summon his strength, to run after her, because whoever she was looking for  _ had  _ to have the stones, but he was…

He was so tired. Tired in his heart. Tired all the way through. His body hurt; his heart hurt. He kept his eyes closed, and he waited.

 

\---

 

Unique lead them through several maintenance hallways of the ship. They were narrow and decrepit, the rotten core of the shiniest apple in the galaxy. But Unique knew them well, and they met only a few panicked hotel employees scurrying around. The sounds of gunshot were loud, but no bullets reached them.

She stopped them, though, at a pair of double doors.

“This leads out to the second floor of the lobby,” she explained. “We’ll be in the open, but we’ll be right by the hallway that the Diva’s suite is in. If you can go get whoever the hell we’re getting, we can get ourselves across the lobby and hopefully not catch the notice of anyone down on the first level. There’s another set of doors that way that’ll take us right down to the emergency escape vessels and the loading bay. We can grab somethin’ outta here and get you wherever you need to go.”

“Thank you,” Blaine said genuinely, taking Unique’s hands and smiling gratefully. “You didn’t have to help us and you did.”

“Hell I didn’t,” Unique replied, her old sass and swagger returning with a smirk. “Who the hell else would’a got me out of here and looked so good doin’ it.”

She winked, and Blaine smiled. But he couldn’t laugh, not yet. Not until Kurt was safe.

“Okay,” he said. “You two--wait here. I’ll be back with Kurt as quick as I can--”

“Fuck that,” Puck interrupted. “I’ll keep you covered, dude. No one’s getting into that hallway without getting past Noah Puckerman.”

“Wait just a second,” Unique said. “You’re Noah Puckerman?”

Oh, yeah. “Puck, explain,” Blaine said. “I’m going to get Kurt.”

Puck nodded. “I got your back. Come on, honey, let Uncle Puck tell you a story--”

It’s the last Blaine heard as he darted out the door, keeping low. He got his bearings quickly--he knew right where he was, as soon as he saw the lobby a floor down to his right, over the edge of a balustrade. The hallway was to his left--and he could see the corner where Kurt had hidden waiting for the Diva from there. The Diva’s door was beyond that.

He ran. No one stopped him, but he felt like there were eyes on his back, and that their gaze could shoot forward and kill him any second. But he made it to the Diva’s door unmolested, only to find it wide open, and the room completely destroyed.

“Kurt?” he shouted without thought, rushing in and looking around. “Kurt, where are you? Kurt!”

He rushed further into the room, and then something fell and dangled from the ceiling.

It was an arm. Kurt’s arm, the tattoo marking him as the Fifth Element visible beneath a layer of grime and--and blood.

“Kurt.”

He ran up and climbed onto the table beneath the opening in the ceiling, apparently the ruins of some kind of air duct. Kurt was curled up inside, not moving except for a very faint rise of breathing. But he was clearly injured, despite being alive, and Blaine had to get him down.

“Come on,” he said, reaching in and wrapping his hands around Kurt’s shoulders and tugging slowly. “Come on, Kurt, wake up, get down from there. We have to get you out of here, come on--”

Kurt was heavy, but Blaine had always been surprisingly strong for his size, and it took just a little bit of tugging to get Kurt mostly out of the duct. Then, he simply slid from it, and Blaine caught him unsteadily--but he caught him.

He’d always catch Kurt.

“I’ve got you,” he said desperately, lowering Kurt to the table and checking him over. “Kurt, please wake up--”

“Bro, you got him?” Puck called from the hallway, and Blaine looked up desperately for just a moment.

“We’re coming!” he shouted, and then looked down, tapping Kurt’s dirtied cheek gently. “Come on, Kurt, please wake up--please, please be okay--”

Kurt’s eyes rolled beneath mostly closed lids, and he blinked.

“\--aine.”

“Yes, sweetheart, it’s me,” Blaine almost sobbed, not even noticing the endearment slipping from his mouth. “I’m so sorry, Kurt, but we have to go--”

“\--an’t.”

“Yes you can,” Blaine urged. “Yes, you can, Kurt. I know you can. But I’m going to help you, okay? I’m going to help you to the ship, and then we’ll use the first aid kit to patch you up, and you’ll feel better, I promise, you won’t have to hurt anymore, I’m so sorry you have to hurt--”

“Blaine!” Puck screamed.

Blaine wiped his own eyes of tears. Kurt wasn’t getting up. He was alive, but he  _ wasn’t getting up _ \-- “Coming!”

There was no choice. He lifted Kurt up in his arms, staggering under the weight, but he’d take it, he’d carry Kurt if that’s what Kurt needed.

“We’re gonna be okay,” Blaine assured. “I promise, Kurt, I won’t let anyone else hurt you.”

“Stop.”

Blaine looked down, and Kurt was shifting in his arms. “Kurt--”

“Stones.”

He set Kurt down. Kurt sank right to the floor, kneeling heavily. Blaine followed him down, holding him around the shoulders. “We have them--we have them, Kurt, Puck’s got them right out in the hall--”

“\--can’t, I can’t, Blaine--”

He collapsed forward, and Blaine caught him, pulling Kurt into his arms. Kurt slumped against his shoulder, limp, and Blaine just held him for a long moment.

“I’m so sorry, Kurt,” he said, stroking Kurt’s hair. “I’m so sorry, but we have to keep going just a little bit longer.”

_ He is far more fragile than he knows. _

Blaine reassured him one more time, and then lifted Kurt up over his shoulder.

“Just a little bit farther, Kurt. I promise. And then this will be over.”

On the way out the door, he stopped and turned. There was a digital timer stuck to the wall, wires and circuit boards all over the back, between the clock and a slick casing that made Blaine very nervous.

The clock read 3:53, and then 3:52, 3:51.

It was counting down.

 

\---

 

_ Over.  _ Blaine had said it would be over soon. That the pain and the violence and the violation would end.

But what Kurt was beginning to realize was that it would  _ never  _ end.

Human lives, and the lives of those who consorted with humans...the suffering was always there, always an undercurrent. It could be as simple as an unwanted touch or as messy as a pile of bodies on the floor.

Kurt had known what his body could do, if he needed it to. He had known that violence might be necessary in order to complete his task.

He just hadn’t known what it would do to him.

He hadn’t realized how it would make him tired all the way down to his bones, that it would seep into his marrow and poison his heart with despair. All that death, and for what? A  _ note?  _ One woman’s belief that she would somehow be spared from the destruction that would befall everyone else around her?

“Just hang on, Kurt,” Blaine urged, his voice rough and his breathing slightly labored as he stumbled through the hallway. The walls around them echoed with the sound of people running and screaming, voices hysterical as glass shattered and the sound of gunshots rang out. Kurt closed his eyes.

Blaine picked up speed, panting with exertion as he ran toward wherever it was he was taking Kurt, until he called out.

“Puck!” he hollered. Then, quieter, “Bomb. There’s a bomb.”

“Dude, no time to waste! This way! If we’re gonna get one of those escape vessels, we can’t dick around!”

“Trying…” Blaine gasped. “Heavy….”

“Give him here.” Puck’s voice was gruff, but there was a touch of tenderness in it as well.

“No,” Blaine gasped out. “I’m not letting go of him.”

Something about the exchange was enough to make Kurt pry his eyes open, looking around at the now-open space they were in.

He really wished he hadn’t.

They had emerged from the series of hallways Blaine had carried him through and emerged in the lobby. All around him people were fighting, mindless in their terror, but one thing was completely, horrifically clear:

Unlike Sue, they were not infected by the darkness. And yet the only lives many of them seemed to value were their own.

Kurt saw a woman shove a crying child out of her way as she ran out the door. He saw a man throw himself behind a woman, crouching as she caught the bullet in the chest that had clearly been intended for him. He even saw one man throw another toward a pair of advancing Mangalores, not even looking back to see what became of him once he had been sacrificed.

Kurt could save this world. He could save it a million times. But it would never end. Not as long as these creatures overran their inhabited planets, doing on a small scale the very thing that the darkness thirsted for on a larger one. Not when goodness was something they had to fight so  _ hard  _ for.

Maybe it was time for hope to die, world and all.

 

\---

 

Puck very graciously burst through the hatch to the escape vessel first, saving Blaine the trouble of slowing down and risking dropping Kurt on his head. Blaine couldn’t risk that, and he needed somewhere to set Kurt down safely very soon. Why was he so  _ heavy _ ?

_ Maybe it’s the weight of the entire universe on his shoulders _ , Blaine thought absently, gritting his teeth as he used a last burst of energy and darted to the side of the deck of the ship. There were seats here, and he set Kurt down as carefully as he could.

“Stay right here, okay?” he said as soothingly as he could. “I need to make sure we’re on our way and the President knows we’re almost there and have the Stones.”

“I’ve got the helm here, just call the fucking President, make sure they don’t get blown up too,” Puck said.

Blaine reached for the comm to the side of the control board, staying away from Puck, who was easily guiding the ship through its protocols and getting ready to fly once they were launched out. He dialed the codes, and a moment later he heard the line buzz on. He didn’t wait.

“This is Blaine Anderson, urgent message for the President,” he shouted before anyone could speak. “I repeat, Blaine Anderson, here with Noah Puckerman and The Fifth Element, I have a message for the President.”

“Go ahead, punkin,” came the voice of Lieutenant Beiste. “You got right to us, she can hear you.”

“ We have the Stones,” Blaine announced. “But there are Mangalores everywhere, and there’s a bomb on the ship. It is going to blow any second, retract anyone you have in the area or send in a squad,  _ something _ \--”

“It’s getting taken care of, Blaine.” That was President Pillsbury’s voice. “Lieutenant Beiste is giving necessary orders. Your top priority is to get safely away from that ship and to the Temple. The protection of the Fifth Element and the Stones are absolutely essential.”

“I know,” Blaine said. “We’re--”

_ Bang _ . Blaine’s hip made an awful noise against the edge of the control, and pain shot up his side as he toppled and then crashed backwards.

“ _ Fuck _ , hold on!”

Blaine finally looked out the front of the ship, and saw the edges of the black space before them go white and yellow and red, and then completely flash over. Puck shouted himself hoarse, and Blaine gritted his teeth to keep from screaming as the ship rattled and shook, but then, suddenly the flight smoothed and Puck cheered.

Blaine looked out. Black space again, dotted by stars. He held the comm back up to his ear.

“We’re away,” Blaine said. “The Stones and the Fifth Element are safe, and we are on course for Earth.”

“Blaine, hurry,” President Pillsbury said. “The Entity is growing. The Darkness is going to consume Earth in a matter of hours, it’s too close.”

Blaine didn’t respond. He just hung up. When he turned, Unique was straightening her dress where she sat.

“ That’s all for tonight, my beautiful audience,” she said into her mic. “If you’re still with me--I’m still with you. Until next time.” She ripped the mic off and tossed out the earpiece, sighing deeply, and then stood and turned to Blaine, grinning. “That was my best broadcast  _ ever _ .”

Blaine started laughing, unable to help himself. But it didn’t last long.

“There’s a cabin in this ship,” Puck said, staring hard at Unique. “The ship’s on autopilot. What say you and me head back and celebrate our continuing survival, sweet cheeks?”

Unique’s lips curled up, and she raised an eyebrow, turning and beckoning to Puck with one finger over her shoulder. Without a word, she lead Puck to the door at the back of the ship, and Blaine only received one cursory glance from Puck.

“Stones are under the helm.” And then they were gone, door shut firmly behind them.

Blaine turned and went to Kurt, who was lying sideways along the seats. The three of them were enough to hold his torso, and his legs were still dangling off the third. His eyes were open and blinked periodically, but Blaine didn’t think they were really seeing anything.

He took Kurt’s hand in his own and squeezed it tight, sitting himself right on the floor so he could stay next to Kurt.

“We’re almost there,” Blaine said. “And I’ll be right here with you till the very end.”

No matter what the outcome, is what he didn’t add. Even if the universe continued on as usual, Blaine would always be right here with Kurt. Fearlessly, and forever.

 


	15. Chapter 10

The moment Puck touched the ship down, Blaine opened the hatch and then went back to Kurt, trying to coax him up.

“Kurt, we’re here,” Blaine said. “Kurt?”

“Dude, he’s fucking out of it, he’s fucking hurt, just get him in,” Puck snapped wearily, stomping out himself and heading over to where Sam stood waiting in front of the Temple, handing him the suit jacket he was holding the Stones in. Blaine turned back to Kurt.

“Just a little longer, Kurt, I promise,” Blaine said, feeling so guilty that he had to. “Then we’ll rest, okay? You can have all the rest you want. Just bear with me a little bit longer.”

He lifted Kurt onto his shoulder again, and stumbled his way to the Temple.

 

\---

 

Sam had opened it up, bless him. The inner sanctum was revealed, all sand and sandstone, worn and dulled with sheer unimaginable age. Four pillars, and a dais in the center. Above the dais, opening up to the desert air, was a tunnel to the surface, letting in a stream of sunlight from the bright noonday.

Blaine knew this part. He’d studied this, he’d prepared. This was what Kurt needed him for. This is what the universe needed from him. And he had to do it right. So he put Kurt down in the center of the dais, brushed his hair from his forehead, and then stood and turned to Sam.

“Assemble the Stones on the plinths. Hurry, match them up.”

They all sprung into action, the urgency finally reaching them as the sky started to dull, darkening slowly, but much, much too quickly. They each managed to grab one Stone, and in a frantic scramble, they started going from plinth to plinth until all of them had put a Stone in place.

“What now?” Puck asked, staring at his. Blaine looked at his own--Water. He willed it to tell him the secret to unlocking it--a secret Kurt might know, but he was still as good as catatonic. The texts had been so vague.

“Blaine?”

Blaine turned. “The texts said we needed to activate them. But they didn’t say how.”

Puck started swearing and cursing, kicking at the plinth. Unique just shook her head and threw up her hands. Blaine turned to Sam, and felt the hope draining away, _saw_ it draining right from his best friend.

“I don’t know, Blaine,” Sam said. “We--we tried. I don’t know--”

He turned to his Stone and sighed deeply. And as soon as he let it out, the sound of Stone scraping echoed through the chamber, and something on Sam’s Stone moved.

“Do that again,” Blaine demanded, running over. “Sam, do that again--”

Air. His Stone was air, and he’d just hit it with a blast of breath. With a blast of _air_.

Sam breathed on it again, and the Stone _locked_ , dropping halfway into the plinth and lighting up with magical energy the likes of which Blaine had _never_ seen, that hadn’t been around for _millennia._ All the scientific technology mankind had uncovered couldn’t match this--this was something that could not be explained, because it had only happened once before, and it would never happen again.

Blaine ran back to his Stone, and shouted out to Puck and Unique, “Use your element! Earth, put some sand on it. Fire, we need a lighter or a match or _something_ \--”

Blaine pulled out a handkerchief and ran it over his sweaty forehead and neck. It was enough to squeeze out a couple of drops onto the water Stone, and it locked and energy and light burst around it. He turned and saw Puck’s doing the same, and then he saw Unique reaching between her breasts.

“What--”

She pulled out a tiny book of matches. “I use them to do makeup. Nothing like a smoky eye made with real ash.”

Puck appeared over her other shoulder and raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t see those in there.”

“Oh, honey, you didn’t see a _lot_ of things,” Unique said, opening the book. One match left. “Now hush. This is it.”

All four of them were gathered, and all eyes were on Unique’s hands, carefully plucking out the final match. She closed the book and turned it, rubbing her thumb gently over the striking board and then laying the head of the match down.

She took one shaky breath, and then held it and struck.

Flame. Beautiful, tiny, _fragile_ flame. She lowered it to the Stone, drew her hand back, and they all waited.

The flame guttered and died. Their breath died in their throats as a single tendril of smoke rose up, and the charred black head of the match lay inert.

And then the Stone locked.

They cheered, and Blaine felt himself embraced, but something was missing. Something still wasn’t right.

Kurt.

_Kurt_.

“Kurt,” Blaine called, and turned and bolted for him. He still lay in the center of the dais, staring up at the sky, which was dark as the blue hour of twilight just before the sun fully disappeared.His lips were trembling, and his eyes filled with tears, _oh Kurt_ \-- “Kurt, I know--I know you hurt, but the Stones are ready, we need you to finish the ritual.”

Kurt’s face crumpled, and he sobbed out brokenly.

“Why?” he demanded in a tight whisper. “Why finish? Nothing...to save.”

Blaine’s heart broke. “Oh, Kurt. There is so much to save.”

“Nothing but pain,” Kurt protested weakly. “Destruction. I saw. I felt.”

Blaine sniffled back his own tears, only partially successful. “I know, Kurt. I know there is a lot of bad in the world.” Blaine wiped his eyes, and held Kurt laying in his lap, cupping his cheek. “But there’s good, too. Did you see the woman on the ship? She grabbed those kids, not even hers, they weren’t even the same species. But she jumped in front of Mangalore guns to save them, risked her own life. And she did, she saved them, Kurt--”

“Too much pain,” Kurt insisted, and closed his eyes.

“No, Kurt, stay with me,” Blaine cried desperately. “Please, listen. I know it feels like there is only bad. I know. You’ve been so hurt, and I am so sorry I didn’t prepare you for this, or protect you. I’m so sorry, Kurt. I promised I would, but I couldn’t. And I--I wish I could take away all that pain for you. Not because it would make you save the world, but because you don’t deserve it. I just--I just want you to be happy after this, Kurt, and you can’t if there isn’t an after. No one can have the chance to choose.”

Kurt’s face crumpled again, but he didn’t open his eyes.

And Blaine didn’t know what to say. He had to reach Kurt somehow.

“Kurt, please,” he whispered.

“Tell him.”

Blaine looked up. Puck looked back frankly, looking as vulnerable as he ever had, his eyes shining.

“Tell him,” he said again. “He needs to hear it. _Tell him_.”

Blaine took a breath, and looked down.

Kurt was still so beautiful, the Perfect Being. But he was imperfect now. He’d been touched by life--more than that, he’d been beaten by it, had the worst of it hurled at him. He’d had to face so much pain in such a short time, Blaine couldn’t blame him at all for wanting to give up.

But there were things worth living for. And Blaine knew of nothing more powerful or important than love.

And Kurt had never experienced it. Kurt had never had anyone simply love him. He was a tool. He wasn’t built to love. That wasn’t the intention. He was built to give and give and give, not to receive. But he was alive, and he was human, and he had a choice. He was _not_ a tool to be used and discarded. He was a funny, intelligent, sassy, _stunning_ human being with breath in his lungs and a heart in his chest, no matter how perfect those things were. He was still human, he still _needed_ love, craved it, maybe without even knowing what it was. He had lived through war and never known the peace that could be on the other side. He had felt the life drain from someone under his hands, but he had never felt life given simply by his presence. Because Blaine hadn’t told him that every time Blaine saw him, his heart stopped beating and started again, like it needed a new life every time it saw Kurt because one lifetime wasn’t enough to love him.

The Perfect Being did not know love. But maybe, just maybe, Blaine could show him.

“Kurt, I need you to hear me,” Blaine said. “I--I need to tell you something. Please. Look at me.”

Kurt opened his eyes. And Blaine let his own tears fall as he looked and saw Kurt so broken. But he had opened his eyes--there was still some hope inside him. And Blaine needed him to feel that.

“Kurt, I--”

He breathed. In, out. His heart restarted itself, renewed itself for Kurt. He looked down, and smiled.

“I love you,” he said. “And...there’s something you said once that I remember. You said I was written on your blueprint. That’s how you found me, right?”

Kurt blinked, breathed in, looked up at him as though confused. “Blueprint. Blaine Anderson.”

“That’s right,” Blaine laughed. “You said you knew my name from the beginning. And--and I need you to know that you’re on my blueprint too, Kurt. From the moment I started breathing, I was meant to be here with you.”

“No,” Kurt sobbed, shaking his head. “No, no love, I not made to love--”

“But I do,” Blaine said. He kissed Kurt’s forehead. “I love you, Kurt. I love you so much. And--and if this is our last moment, I need you to know that.”

Kurt gasped, and then fell silent. The light above them was almost out.

“Blaine.”

Blaine looked back down, and Kurt leaned up.

“Show me.”

Blaine nodded. “Okay.”

And then they kissed, and the world exploded.

 

\---

 

The kiss.

If only he’d _known--_

It was as if Kurt’s heart were a series of hollow tunnels that were finally filled with the warmest, most nourishing light he could possibly imagine. As if all the disparate pieces of his human experience were finally, effortlessly fusing into one clear picture.

Because in that moment, soft lips against soft lips, nothing else in the universe but those _lips--_ in that moment, it became instantly and startlingly clear that Blaine was not showing Kurt what love was; at least no more than he ever had. Blaine had shown Kurt what love was the moment they had laid eyes on one another. Kurt just hadn’t known how to see it until now.

Kurt may have been the Supreme Being, but he was not the Fifth Element. He never had been.

Because the Fifth Element was love. The Fifth Element was _Blaine._ His lips on Kurt’s were like the flame and the breath and the sweat and the earth on those stones.

He clutched Blaine tight, lips eager and greedy for more, inhaling deeply as Blaine responded in kind. This was _nothing_ like the kiss that had been forced on him only hours before, and gods, this was the reason, wasn’t it?

_This_ was why it was so important to see this little world survive. Because the people could be cruel and violent, but if they had _this_ inside themselves, it would be a crime to let them perish. If they had _this,_ there was no limit to their potential.

If they had _this,_ how had the darkness ever stood a chance?

The world had gone blinding white all around them, leaking through Kurt’s eyelids, pulsing through him, _from_ him, cleansing energy pouring from Blaine’s heart into Kurt’s, and out into the universe.

Kurt barely noticed, wasn’t even entirely sure whether the universe was still there or not. All he did know was that Blaine was there, in Kurt’s arms.

And that was universe enough for him at the moment.

 

\---

 

The tank was much like the one Kurt had first found himself in, when he had awoken frightened and confused in the lab just days before. It also couldn’t have been more different.

For one, it wasn’t completely transparent. Kurt couldn’t honestly say he would have minded, but he knew Blaine probably wouldn’t have been comfortable that way. Not with all those people walking around on the other side. Human modesty and all that.

They weren’t _really_ supposed to be in the healing chamber at the same time; the first doctor had muttered about contamination and said it would slow down their tissue repair, but they had refused to part, clinging to one another fiercely even in their weakened state. A second doctor had finally snapped at the first, arguing that they were better off _in_ the tank than out of it, even if sharing one wasn’t ideal.

Kurt had let them peel what was left of his shredded clothing from his raw and singed body, kissing Blaine’s temple softly when he whimpered at the sensation when his own clothes were removed.

They settled their tender bodies together on the soft, padded bed inside the healing chamber, hissing at the contact but unable to imagine the greater pain of any physical distance at all between them.

If Kurt could help it, he was going to stay as physically close to Blaine as possible for the rest of his days on earth.

Blaine blinked his eyes open slowly and gazed over at Kurt. “Love you,” Blaine whispered, his face lovely beside Kurt’s in the soft, peach-colored light that surrounded them.

“Love _you,”_ Kurt whispered back, and his heart felt like it was breaking open all over again as he said it, his skin tingling all over with what it meant to be alive, what it meant to be loved.

 

\---

 

Kurt blinked his eyes open, surprised that he had actually fallen asleep. He felt immeasurably better, body far less ravaged from saving the universe than it had been hours (Minutes? Days?) earlier.

His lungs felt clean and whole, his skin once again soft and smooth. And Blaine’s skin-

Oh. _Blaine’s_ _skin._ There was quite a bit of that pressed all along Kurt’s body, wasn’t there?

They were tangled together, limbs hopelessly intertwined, Blaine as gorgeous as he had been the last time Kurt had watched him slumber, but now with even more of himself on display. And the two of them _together--_

Those beautiful bodies he had watched on Blaine’s computer were nothing next to the beauty of his own body with Blaine’s. Kurt shifted onto his side and let his eyes travel down the length of him, of _them,_ and he was quite sure that he would never see anything more beautiful, no matter how long he lived.

He could not help but notice his own arousal as well as Blaine’s, even in sleep, and he couldn’t resist twirling a curl around his finger and planting a soft but lingering kiss on Blaine’s lips. Now that Kurt was beginning to understand--what he felt between his legs _could_ exist without what was in his heart, apparently, but the idea of _combining_ the two feelings was intoxicating--all he could think about was how badly he wanted to do it.

Blaine blinked his eyes open, gazing up at Kurt with such unfiltered love that Kurt was helpless to do anything but kiss him again. Kurt shifted from his side onto his hands and knees, tentatively moving to straddle Blaine’s body as Blaine reached his hand up to cradle Kurt’s jaw gently, kissing him again and again and again.

“I…” Kurt began, lifting his mouth from Blaine’s and chewing on his bottom lip. “Blaine, I want...can we...um.” He looked down at Blaine steadily, trying to figure out how to ask for this, for _more,_ but Blaine seemed to figure out his dilemma, eyes sparkling as he let his hands travel softly down the slope of Kurt’s shoulders and back, settling on his buttocks before firmly pulling Kurt’s body down on top of his own.

“Is this what you want?” Blaine whispered against Kurt’s lips while Kurt gasped, because _oh,_ the warm, silky glide of him, the soft tickling hairs and shifting muscles, the hard heat between his legs…

“Blaine,” Kurt managed on a shaky exhale. “Yes. _yes._ Please, I- show me what to do.”

Blaine gave a small, slightly embarrassed-sounding laugh. “I...all I know is what I’ve seen in, you know, _those movies,_ Kurt,” Blaine admitted, cheeks as red as apples.

“You have not been sexually intimate with another person?” Kurt asked. Blaine shrugged and shook his head, biting his lip against a smile.

“Then we will learn together,” Kurt said, shifting on top of Blaine and causing him to make a noise that Kurt enjoyed hearing very much. “Those movies give me ideas.”

Blaine didn’t try to hold back his laughter this time. “They’ve given me plenty of ideas too, Kurt, trust me,” he agreed, pulling Kurt down into a smiling kiss. “You’re so beautiful,” Blaine murmured against his lips. “I’ve wanted to touch you since the moment I saw you."

“Then touch me,” Kurt offered softly, taking Blaine’s hand and guiding it between them until his fingertips brushed against Kurt’s hard cock.

“Please,” Blaine whispered, his eyes drifting closed, a look of contented bliss falling across his face as he began exploring Kurt’s length with his fingers.

Kurt could not stop himself from making a noise of his own at the sensation, at the feeling of another person’s touch in such an intimate place. He hazily tried to remember what he had seen in the movies, what he had reacted to the most strongly. And then Blaine’s own cock brushed Kurt’s thigh, and he stopped thinking. Because all he could think about was how much he wanted to be touching Blaine too.

Kurt reached for Blaine, nearly losing his balance in the process in the rounded chamber, and Blaine released his grip on Kurt to steady him. They both laughed softly, and Blaine nudged Kurt’s hip, shifting both of their bodies until they lay on their sides again, facing one another.

“Much better,” Blaine sighed, dropping a quick peck to the tip of Kurt’s nose. Their fingers found their way back to one another, and then it was soft kisses and careful touches for a long, perfect time.

The tank’s healing light warmed their skin as their touches grew more bold, and urgency began to build.

“Blaine,” Kurt panted, his voice high, almost a whine, even to his own ears. “How--in the movie, the men-” He gripped Blaine’s ass tightly, fingers dipping just slightly between the round, heavy globes.

“Kurt,” Blaine responded, and his voice was most _definitely_ a whine, “we--I want you so much, I want to do _everything_ with you, but we...the movie. We can’t do that here. Not yet. We need. Um. something to ease the way.”

Kurt paused in stroking Blaine, letting his fingers rest in a loose grip around his shaft. He furrowed his eyebrows at Blaine, who smiled, and lifted a leg, slinging it over Kurt’s hip. he reached behind himself to guide Kurt’s hand further between his cheeks until the tips of his fingers brushed against Blaine’s hot, dry hole. Blaine arched his back and gasped at the contact.

Kurt stared at Blaine, heart pounding and eyes wide, because Blaine was so small there, so _tight._ Tentatively, he tried to slip a finger inside, but stopped because he wasn’t sure that even _that_ would fit.

“The movies, they...they don’t always show everything. When...sorry, _if_ we eventually do this-”

“When,” Kurt cut in softly, because being inside of Blaine, having Blaine inside of _him,_ was most definitely something that Kurt wanted to try. Probably many times.

“When,” Blaine repeated with a tender smile, “we do this, we will need some kind of substance. There are lubricants made for this very purpose, or...some types of oil can work, too. And we’ll need to use fingers first, to stretch the opening so that it isn’t painful. But there are a lot of things we _can_ do right now.”

“What is best to do?” Kurt inquired, rubbing Blaine’s hole more firmly with the pad of his thumb.

“Um. We--we can--oh, _Kurt.”_ Blaine’s eyes rolled back as he pushed his body back onto Kurt’s thumb. “There--there are-- _gods--_ there are -” Blaine struggled to speak between deep, heavy breaths, but Kurt did not slow down his ministrations. Seeing Blaine like this, unravelled and unable to control himself, and all because of _Kurt’s_ touch, was making Kurt’s belly squirm in the most pleasant way.

“There isn’t a _best,_ I don’t think,” Blaine finally managed. “I think...it depends on what the people involved want. In the moment.”

“In this moment,” Kurt replied, considering, continuing to circle Blaine’s hole, “I want as much of me to touch as much of you as possible.”

“Yes,” Blaine gasped, “just...here…”

Blaine pulled at Kurt until they were flush against one another, then reached between their bodies to adjust their cocks, his eyes bright and his cheeks beautifully scarlet, lower lip caught between his teeth in concentration. Kurt gasped when he felt the hot, hard skin of Blaine’s arousal pressed tightly to his own, and let out a sharp, strangled cry when Blaine began to move.

Blaine tightened his leg around Kurt’s hip, and Kurt instinctively reached for it, pulling Blaine’s knee up higher as they thrust together, jolts of pleasure rushing through him as they shifted and squirmed and sought a shared rhythm.

It was...it was unlike anything Kurt had ever even _imagined_ feeling. They kissed desperately, or as close to it as they could manage--mostly just hot, wet breath and desperate tongues and lips, and moved together faster, finally hitting their stride, finally moving together like a dance they had been practicing together all their lives, and before Kurt could even register what he was doing he had flipped Blaine onto his back and began thrusting down, cocks growing slick with leaking fluids, and Blaine wrapped his legs tightly around Kurt’s waist, thrusting up against him faster and faster, and they were practically _yelling_ into one another’s mouths now, panting and overwhelmed and far beyond the capacity for mere human speech.

Kurt wanted nothing more than to express his love, to sob it into Blaine’s flesh, and the realization that he didn’t even need words to do it, that he _was_ doing it, was almost too overwhelming to bear. He pulled back slightly to look down at Blaine, who whimpered in protest and tried to pull Kurt back down immediately, causing Kurt’s body to shift and his cock to slip beneath Blaine’s in a hard, slick thrust along the underside of his balls and between the lush cheeks of his ass, the head of Kurt’s cock hitting almost sharply against Blaine’s hole.

Despite the toe-curling pleasure of it, Kurt was about to apologize, _would_ have apologized, if Blaine hadn’t arched his back and let out a _wail_ and come all over both of them, rubbing his hole over the head of Kurt’s cock again and again as he spasmed and writhed through it.

And the sight of that--of Blaine’s face scrunched in too much pleasure, his body wracked and overtaken with it--coupled with the feel of what they were doing, that was what made Kurt finally fall over the edge as well, and it was a feeling so far beyond his only other experience of orgasm that actual tears all but poured from his eyes as he collapsed, sobbing and shaking into Blaine’s loose, pliant arms.

“Kurt,” Blaine murmured, pressing tiny kisses to every part of Kurt’s face he could reach, his lips salty from Kurt’s tears when he kissed Kurt’s lips, “I love you. Please--please stay with me, be with me, I _love_ you, I--”

“Blaine Anderson,” Kurt murmured, smiling through his tears as his heart nearly burst with the size of what he was feeling. “You are on my blueprint. Us, together, that is what saved this world. I am never saying goodbye to you.”

They snuggled closer and let the healing light continue to do its work, waiting blissfully for the rest of their lives to begin.


	16. Epilogue

“--and we found the body of Sue Sylvester in the wreck of the NYADA Paradise,” Lieutenant Beiste concluded. “Had some kinda paper note all clenched in her hand so tight it was still intact when we pried it out.”

“That sounds gruesome,” President Emma Pillsbury said, wringing her hands where they were properly folded in front of her.

“Yeah, I guess. Anyway, all told, there are a little less than two thousand dead, most of them Mangalores. We’ve received a formal letter of apology from their government, by the way.”

“Very good,” Emma replied. “We’ll give a statement later today.”

“And the kids, they gonna be healed up in time?”

“Probably not,” Emma squeaked. “No, they need rest. We should let them be.”

“You sure?” Beiste asked. “Maybe we should check in--”

“No!” Emma insisted, stepping in front of Beiste as she tried to head to the healing chamber. “No, they need more time. Not done yet. Let’s let them have some rest, they’ve had a long day.”

“Sure thing,” Beiste said, shrugging. “I just think someone should check on them, make sure they’re okay--”

“I already checked,” Emma admitted, her cheeks bright red.

Beiste smiled. “And? They’re okay?”

“Trust me,” Emma said, trying not to remember what exactly she saw when she peeked in. “They’re fine.”

 

**~The End~**


End file.
